Accra, July 18, GNA - The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) on Friday said recent strategies and standards adopted by the Authority to manage the scheme were aimed at ensuring efficiency, accountability and sustainability of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

These standards, according to the Authority, included developing and administering an aptitude test to District Mutual Health Insurance Scheme accountants, which was intended to comprehensively identify competence gaps with a view to designing a tailor-made training programme for the accountants.

The goal is to equip them to account more professionally for public funds entrusted to the schemes.

"We wish to emphasize that the test was not intended to be used as a tool to dismiss schemes staff, something the NHIA is not mandated by law to do," a statement issued by the Authority during a media encounter said in Accra.

Nana Agyei Doku, Chairman of the NHIA Board and Mr Ras Boateng, Chief Executive Officer, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and other board members addressed the media to respond to various issues arising on the scheme.

The Authority said the standards also fell under a five-year strategic plan that sought to increase membership coverage, strengthen the human resource base and improve efficiency in all aspects of the scheme.

Implementation of the plan, started in 2007 and would lapse in 2011.

On conditions of service for workers of the Scheme, the Authority said steps had been taken to develop guidelines on conditions of service for adaptation by the schemes, which the Board was expected to approve within the next two months.

On the scheme's indebtedness, the Authority said some districts, schemes had accumulated debts to healthcare service providers, which had often caused disaffection of providers for the scheme, the NHIA and for the NHIS generally.

However, all efforts by NHIA to seek the cooperation of the schemes in knowing their debts to enable the Authority to assist in paying had been met with some difficulties, Mr Ras Boateng said. In spite of this, NHIA had not relented in persuading defaulters to comply. "Meanwhile when indebtedness is cleared and schemes are asked to account for the disbursement, most schemes do not comply", Mr Boateng noted.

He said current tariffs were increased based on the Ghana Diagnosis Related Groupings on the principle of the "weighted average" cost for managing a case mix.

Mr Boateng said the printing of new uniform ID cards would not be done in Israel as being speculated but in Ghana while the centralization of ID cards printing would be done only in the transition from the old cards to the new in view of the large volumes. Nana Agyei Doku said the recent allegations by members of the Mutual Health Insurance Workers Association that the CEO, Mr Boateng was "a corporate dictator" were unfounded.

"Mr Boateng as we know is not a dictator; he just executes the policies of the Board. The Board has not seen anything about him that makes him a dictator", Nana Doku added. 18 July 08