Gov’t pays GH¢1.04bn NHIS Claims

The government has made payments amounting to GH¢1.04 billion to service providers under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

The amount relates to claims paid up to the month of June, 2021.

“If you take into consideration the normal lead time for payments of three months, we will owe our clients four months in arrears,” Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu said when he addressed the press in Accra.

He said out of the total amount paid, GH¢529.43 million representing 51.11 per cent went to public health facilities, and GH¢288.04 million representing 27.81 per cent went to private health facilities.

GH¢202.56 million representing 19.56 per cent went to mission owned health facilities and GH¢15.76 million representing 1.52 per cent was paid to quasi-public health facilities.

According to the sector minister, the payment of the claims is a significant improvement from the 12 months arrears inherited in 2017 which led to most of the facilities refusing to accept NHIS cards from subscribers for healthcare delivery.

Touching on the recent increase in the scheme’s membership, Mr. Agyeman-Manu said the total membership as at December 2021 stood at 25,358,957.

“Annual active membership as at December 2021 was 16,759,158 and there were 34 million visits by 8.4 million members out of 16.7 million active members,” he explained.

He indicated that about 50 per cent of active members used their card during the year with average visits for those who use their card being four visits in a year.

“Self-service mobile renewal through the code *929# accounts for 80 per cent of our renewals,” he added.

Mr. Agyeman-Manu said the scheme has also expanded it benefits package to include the medication ‘Herceptin’ for breast cancer treatment.

“Plans are advanced for four childhood cancers (Retinoblastoma, Burkitt’s lymphoma, Wilm’s Tumour, Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia) and hydroxylurea for sickle cell treatment to be included in the package,” he added.