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20.02.2009 Health

Government’s commitment to NHIS is laudable

By Ameyaw Debrah - ameyawdebrah.com
Governments commitment to NHIS is laudable
20.02.2009 LISTEN

Mr Raymond Avinu, the Volta Regional Manager of the (National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has said the government's commitment to the scheme was laudable. “We are fully prepared to help see through the vision of the new administration regarding the NHIS for the benefit of all of us”.

Mr Raymond Avinu, Volta Regional Manager of the NHIS, said this when he interacted with the media during a meeting of the Volta Regional Managers of the NHIS on Thursday.

Mr Avinu said the government's position was reassuring in view of campaigns immediately after the December election suggesting that the NHIS was no longer viable and had fallen on bad times.

“More serious and unfortunate was allegation that most of the scheme managers in the region had been chased out of their offices, scheme vehicles seized and all activities in the schemes' offices had grounded to a halt”, Mr Avinu said.

He said it was difficult to understand the motives of such doomsday campaigns against the Scheme.

Mr Avinu said the scheme managers in the region were ready to follow any policy direction for the benefit of all. He assured members of the various mutual schemes and potential members of their security and improvement of the scheme as steps were being taken to perfect its operations.

Mr Avinu said membership of the scheme in the region had grown from 43.2 percent in 2007 to 57.5 percent as at December 2008. He said national biometric identity cards have been provided to 38,470 members of the scheme in the region while the NHIS Authority had taken far-reaching measures to automate the processing of claims to eliminate delays.

Mr Avinu said 286 million Ghana cedis had just been released to service providers in the region as payment for services rendered to clients. He said the seeming delay in reimbursing service providers was because due processes must be followed in effecting payments and that management of the scheme in the region is aiming at becoming a model for the whole country.

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