Health providers unhappy with new tariff contract document

Ho, April 22, GNA - Some accredited public healthcare providers in the Ho Municipality on Tuesday expressed reservations with the new contract document on the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) tariff. They said the document was one sided, did not reflect their interests and have therefore taken copies away for further study having declined to sign.

Their private sector counterparts however signed and presented copies of their contracts to the Ho Municipal NHIS. This was at a day's refresher course organized by the Scheme for the smooth take-off of the new tariff.

Dr. Kofi Gafatsi Normanyo, Medical Superintendent of the Ho Municipal Hospital, said many clauses in the contract document did not bind the NHIS to good faith as required of the service providers. He said, for example, there was nothing in the document to hold the Scheme accountable if payment of claims were unduly delayed. Dr. Normanyo said the hospital had bitter experiences with the Scheme in the implementation of the previous tariff and the hospital would not enter into any contract that was ambiguous and one sided. Similar reservations were expressed by representatives of other public health institutions in the Ho Municipality and health centres in the municipal area.

Mr Raymond Avinu, Volta Regional Manager of the NHIS, said the new NHIA tariff came into effect from February 1 and urged all health providers to sign the contract. He said "we can not have a perfect document" and that it was not healthy for service providers to declare "positive defiance", to signing the document.

Mr Avinu assured the service providers that their concerns would be conveyed to the national secretariat for study and redress. In a speech read for him Dr. Andrew Arde-Acquah, Volta Regional Director of Health Services, cautioned health providers to ensure that they understood provisions in the new tariff. Mr Prosper Kofi Pi-Bansah, Ho Municipal Manager of the Scheme, 69,000 people had been registered in the Municipality and claims worth 1.323 million Ghana Cedis paid out to service providers as at February. Mr Pi-Bansah said 78,000 people had attended health facilities since the Scheme was established in the Municipality. He mentioned prescriptions outside the drug list and poor health providers/clients relationship as problems still affecting the Scheme.