Health Service Providers urged to comply with directive of the new medicine and tariff list


The practice of co-payment by some service providers in some parts of the country has become a source of worry for subscribers particularly those in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions. 

This development follows complaints by service providers that medicine prices in the open market is different from what is contained in the health insurance market list. 

As a result of this, the medicine list and services tariffs were reviewed sometime last month and subsequently a new list was released on December first this year. 

The new list is to solve the price differentials and hence abolish the co-payment system. 

At a stakeholder engagement meeting organised by the Municipal Health Insurance office of the National Health Insurance Authority, in Bolgatanga, service providers were entreated to comply with the directive. 

Stakeholders also pledged to adopt pragmatic measures to ensure that the scheme is effectively sustained to improve the health of residents in the municipality. 

The purpose of the meeting was to bring all stakeholders of NHIS including service providers, assembly members, NGOs, and the media together to take stock of the successes, failures and challenges as well as chart a new path. 

The Municipal Scheme Manager, Roland Ayine, said about 88.4 percent of medicine prices have gone upwards and according to him, this is a step in the right direction as service providers will stop collecting monies from subscribers. 

Mr. Ayine added that this will also make people have confidence in the scheme and subsequently patronise it. 

He said the scheme is a pro-poor policy instituted by government to deliver quality health service to all and therefore it behooves the municipal office to facilitate this process and guarantee free medical care for its clients at any health facility in the municipality.  

Mr Ayine noted that his office has registered and issued out ID cards to a total of 89,263 clients from January to October this year while a total of 369,912 in terms of premium was collected for the same period under review. 

Additionally, the office partnered with Ghana Education Service in the Municipality to register over 26,600 school children under school feeding program which represent over 100 percent of its end of year target. 

The Municipal Scheme Manager appealed to its service providers, NGOs, and the general public to join hands in the sustainability of the scheme in educating the people on the need to register and promptly renew their ID cards for better access to health care. 

A representative from the Municipal Health Directorate, Prosper Asandem, said there is the need to strengthen the relationship between the insurance scheme and stakeholders as a strategy to sustain the NHIOS in the municipality. 

He stressed that sustainability will depend on prudent financial management, good collaboration between service providers and improvement of preventive medicine adding that the huge hospital attendance can be reduced to the barest minimal to ease the burden on the NHIS scheme if preventive aspect of ailments is critically looked at rather that the curative aspect. 

The MIS Officer, Charles Nsobila, said the state of biometric registration system and the preferred primary provider’s enrolment improved significantly in the period under review. 

He said the municipal office extended its services to the remote communities to register people especially the vulnerable group who otherwise could not have been able to visit the main office for the exercise.

Additionally four satellite areas including Sumbrungu, Sirigu, Bambibgo and Tindomolgo were mounted to enable residents from those areas have access to the scheme.

GBC