Central Regional ranked among three Best NHIS branches

Winneba, July 31, GNA - The Central Regional branch of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) was at the end of the first half of the 2015/2016 operation period, ranked among the three best performing NHIA Regions in the country.

Currently, the NHIA has a total of 160 permanent operational schemes throughout the country, Mr. Francis Oti-Frimpong, Central Regional Director of the NHIA, disclosed this at the end of a three-day half-year review conference organized by the Regional Directorate of the NHIS at Winneba.

Mr Oti-Frimpong attributed the Region's laudable achievements to the high sense of commitment and team spirit, strongly supported by collaborative efforts and hard work form NHIA workers in the Region.

The Regional Director enumerated a number of factors which contributed to the advancement of the NHIA's activities in the Region.

These, he said, included information sharing, effective monitoring, regular meetings, intensive outreach programmes, capacity building, which enhanced procurement process, and effective internal control mechanisms.

Mr Oti-Frimpong said, additionally, stakeholders/scheme management meetings initiated by the 13 NHIA branches in the Region also played vital roles in making the achievement successful.

The Regional Director said that notwithstanding, the Region recorded some challenges during the period under review, adding that principal among them was the delay payment of claims to accredited health service provides.

According to Mr Oti-Frimpong, this virtually resulted in various kind of abuses ranging from cash and carry, extortion, negative press coverage, and the infamous Public-Private Payment (PPP) in April, this year, and its resultant effect on membership drive.

He was, however, happy to announce that both the unpaid outstanding claims of accredited health service providers in the Region for 2014 and January, 2015 had been fully paid, leaving February and March, 2015 indebtedness to settle.

Besides formulating new working strategies for the enhancement of their respective schemes operation, the conference also assisted participants to strengthen their collaboration, improve the team spirit among the NHIA work forces in both the district, municipalities, and the regional office, to speed up the attainment of the set targets for the 2015 operational period.

Mr William Omane-Adjekum, Director of the Central Regional Claims Processing Centre (CPC), said claims payment constituted 80 percent of NHIA funds, expressing worry that some of the clams submitted by some providers were not legitimate.

'There is therefore the need for good collaboration between the CPC and the district offices to enhance effective claims management', Mr. Omane-Adjekum emphasized.

The Regional CPC Director called on the district offices whose claims have been taken over by CPC, to still visit and monitor the various health providing facilities in their areas of operation.

Mr Omane-Adjekum tasked Scheme Managers to provide his outfit with specific information on areas charged to enhance CPC's vetting process to avoid double payment.

Mr Evans Amoakwah, Manager of the Central Regional Claims Processing Centre, charged healthcare service providers in the Region to engage the services of qualified claims recording managers at their facilities to avoid mistakes in the preparation of claims.

GNA