Private health facilities in Ghana say they will back down and rescind their decision to protest if the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) pays them just four months of the 10-month claims in arrears.

The Acting President PHFAoG, Mr Samuel Boakye Donkor, told Kasapa 102.5 FM that private health facilities have reached breaking points as they are being overwhelmed on daily basis by the cost of healthcare provision.

“All we need is for them to release some substantial amount of the arrears to us and we’ll withdraw our planned action. Last week Friday they told us the money will come this week, and there are no signs of that happening. Right from January up till date they’ve been deceiving us and we won’t take that anymore.”

He added: “healthcare is capital intensive; every day you need about 5,6, 10 thousand a day to run and how do we work?

“Officials are failing the President because they’re not telling Nana Addo the true state of affairs. Maybe they’ve also released funds, and somebody out there is withholding it just to paralyze health services,” he told host Kweku Owusu Adjei on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.5 FM.

Cash and carry looms

Subscribers of the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) seeking healthcare at private hospitals will not be attended to from next week.

They would receive healthcare only if they can pay cash for treatment.

The Private Health Facilities Association of Ghana says this has become necessary due to huge arrears in claims payment from the National Health Insurance Authority is crippling their operations.

“Most recent reimbursement covered the month of February, 2019 and even that, about only 30% of the facilities have received payment leaving a huge unsettled gap of nine (9) to ten (10) months which is a flagrant contravention of the National Health Insurance ACT 852 and the L.I 1809 sections 37 and 38 respectively,” it said in a statement.

Earlier, a statement signed by the Association’s Acting President Mr Samuel Boakye Donkor said:

“With these revelations in sight, we are initiating a full scale “CASH AND CARRY” on the 16th of December, 2019 if payments outstanding from 2018 to some of our members and that of 2019 is not cleared to alleviate the intensity of our woes and distress. We know this action will most likely spark an unnecessary uproar and erode confidence in policy execution by government but we have no option.”