The acting North East regional director of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), George Apetigah, has cautioned healthcare providers in the region to stop extorting money from members of the scheme.
Apetigah is unhappy about the development and has encouraged staff of the scheme to work closely with healthcare providers to restore the confidence in the scheme.
Apetigah expressed concern about the shortage of consumables, delay in payment of claims, lack of operational vehicles in some districts, understaffing, user dissatisfaction during registration and network challenges in some of the districts.
He was speaking at Nalerigu, the regional capital during the scheme’s end-of-year performance review for 2022.
He said “thankfully, our proactive CEO has promised to deal with the issue and therefore co-payment committees have been formed at all levels to deal with the menace.”
At the beginning of 2022, the region set out to register 370,031 new members out of a total population of 680,032. By the end of December 2022, it had registered 375,759 new members, representing 101.5% of its target.
Apetigah said the percentage achieved has placed the region in the third position at the national level for active membership.
The review meeting had some regional officials in attendance, including the acting director for the Savanna Region, the Northern Regional accountant and the senior monitoring and evaluation officer for the Bono East Region.
Apetigah encouraged the staff of the scheme in the region to work hard to make the first position by the end of December 2023.
Reporting by Dokurugu Alhassan in the North East Region
