The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has disagreed with an allegation that management of the body has set high salaries for themselves.

Explaining in a statement, the authority said the truth about remunerations in the organization is that salaries for the lower levels of staff had already been set before the current management was engaged and salaries of directors were set by the Public Services Commission.

What the NHIA did on the advice of the human resource policy consultants, the statement went on, was to determine the remunerations of the middle level staff.

“This was done by rationalizing the salaries of the middle level manpower based on the salaries of directors and the lower level staff inherited,” the statement put forth, adding that this was done with the approval of the National Health Insurance Council.

The 40 percent 1st January, 2007 salary increment, the authority indicated, was meant for staff at the scheme level and that nobody at the NHIA enjoyed the increase.

Touching on some of the challenges of the authority, the statement pointed at the district level schemes, which have continuously accumulated indebtedness to healthcare service providers.

In spite of the demands by the authority to be posted about the extent of indebtedness of the district schemes, some of them have not responded positively.

The statement observed that the NHIA, despite the drawback, had not relented in persuading defaulters to comply.

Another headache for the authority, the statement explained, was the fact that when indebtedness is cleared and schemes are asked to account for the disbursement, most schemes do not comply, an anomaly which is contrary to the Financial Administration Act.

A measure the authority has adopted to contain the drawback is the adoption of a 5-year strategic plan spanning the period 2007-2011, adding that this had been approved and was being implemented.

The statement punched holes in the allegation that the current NHIS tariffs were too high and would collapse the scheme.

According to the authority, this is the first time since the inception of the scheme three years ago that tariffs have been reviewed, adding that inflation rate has not been static.

Continuing, the statement explained that tariffs are based on diagnosis related groupings which is a known mechanism for controlling cost and improving quality of care.

Ghana's system, the statement claimed, had received international acclaim from various bodies including development partners.

Identity card printing centralization which became an issue, the statement said, was outsourced to ABM in Cape Coast; incidentally though, this measure resulted in backlog on the part of the schemes.

That the new uniform NHIS ID Card would be printed in Israel, the authority has described as lies. “The ID cards will be printed here in Ghana,” the statement asserted.

As a start-up regulatory body, the NHIA explained that it had not failed to join forces with its stakeholders, adding that in this connection and in line with its principle of transparency, “the Authority has ensured involvement and participation of stakeholders in important processes such as the development of its strategic plan, the tariffs and medicines list.”

Certain persons, the NHIA has observed, are against standardization in the implementation of the scheme which would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the scheme.

The statement assured that “the authority will not relent in engaging the schemes and all other stakeholders in its vision and quest to make the NHIS an efficient and sustainable scheme that becomes a model in poverty reduction.” Source: Daily Guide - Daily Guide