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The National Health Insurance Authority in the Brong Ahafo region have
organized an end of year review meeting for 2014 at Sunyani, under the
theme: Eleven Years of NHIS Implementation in the Brong Ahafo Region,
Successes, Challenges and the way forward.
AG. Regional Director, Sebastian Alagpulinsa said they have achieved a
total active membership registration of 1,507,469 representing 61%
coverage of the region's population.
And out of the membership, a total of 437,795 poor and indigents were
registered from a regional target of 272,056.
He said Brong Ahafo Region was first among the among the non-biometric
regions at the National level.
"In our drive to increase efficiency in the financial operations of
the scheme and particularly in the region, we conducted 43 payment
verification visits to the twenty (20) district offices and 144
provider sites to ensure effective application of the NHIS tariff
regime and the medicines list."
According to Mr. Sebastian Alagpulinsa, another innovative strategy
that was pursued by the region for the sustainability of the scheme
and as a step to reduce clinical audit deductions at the provider
site, was the partnership between the regional office of GHS and the
NHIA to train all providers in the region on the standard treatment
guidelines as well as rational use of medicines.
He added that the Brong Ahafo NHIA, have paid claims up to July 2014
with a total cost of GHC 44,381,429.29 at 2,399,449 utilization for
both OPD and IPD. "when this is compared with the same period in 2013,
claims cost as at July was GHC 37,276,189.49 with total utilization of
2,120,260. In terms of the cost it shows a percentage change of 19%
and that of utilization is 13%."
Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Hon. Justice Samuel Adjei said
the health insurance scheme in Ghana since its inception, has to a
large extent positively affected the lives of its enrolees and has
chalked numerous successes.
He said the programme has systematically achieved: the reduction in
the rising cost of health care among the participants; it has led to
the fair distribution of contributions for health; it has ensured that
socio-economic groupings do not constitute a barrier to somebody to
access health care where he wants; and it has restored confidence in
primary and secondary levels of health care.
"Contrary to the perceptions in some sections of the Ghanaian populace
that the National Health Insurance Scheme is collapsing, i wish to
take this opportunity to indicate that the scheme has achieved
remarkable results in our region. Its active membership coverage rose
from a total of 1,353,761 in 2013 to 1,507,469 in 2014, representing
65.23 percent of the Regional population of 2,310,983 (2010 PHC)."
Hon. Justice Adjei commended staff of the NHIS in the region for this
remarkable and enviable achievement.
