NHIA interdicts over thirty scheme Managers for fraud

By Citifmonline.com

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) says it has interdicted thirty of its scheme Managers overseeing some of the One Hundred and Forty Five schemes across the country, since June 2009 till date. Others have also had their appointments terminated.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of the Authority Sylvester Mensah, four of these managers have already been prosecuted and are awaiting verdict.

In an interview with Citi FM’s Moro Awudu, on the Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday April 29, Mr. Mensah further disclosed that some health service providers will also be put before court for various fraudulent offences. He said some subscribers have also swindled the scheme and will be dealt with accordingly.

He said the Authority as part of activities to overhaul the five year old scheme is collaborating with the police Headquarters to establish a desk at its office to deal solely with cases of fraud from the scheme.

The National Health Insurance Authority under Mr. Sylvester Mensah has undertaken comprehensive measures aimed at overhauling the scheme and ensuring its sustenance into the future.

This includes the new draft NHIS Law now before the Attorney General seeking to replace the existing Law ACT (650). He is also leading a team of technocrats to put in place the right modalities for the implementation of the onetime premium payment mechanism promised the nation by the Mills administration.

The NHIA Boss said the scheme had chalked significant successes in spite of the numerous challenges it faced. He said a clinical audit system introduced by the scheme and endorsed by the Ghana Health Service has succeeded in recovering an amount of Five Million Ghana cedis between January and March 2009.

He said as part of measures to deal with financial leakages, mutual schemes will no more have access to the premiums they collect; rather the monies will be transferred to one central account to be known as the Consolidated Premium Account.

Mr. Mensah added that the NHIA had proposed to the Health Ministry to withdraw accreditations of all private health providers to the scheme whose proprietors operate fully in public health institutions. He believes this will stem corruption which affects the scheme to the advantage of the providers.

Mr. Mensah said the legal reforms in the scheme among other things, will eventually pave way for the implementation of the onetime premium payment.

He rejected claims that the onetime premium payment was not workable and noted that it only needed the commitment of a social democratic government like the NDC to bring it to fruition. He was optimistic that the policy would be implemented on January 1, 2011.