Accra, May 12, GNA - A two-day trainer of trainers workshop for health providers opened in Accra on Thursday to afford service providers the opportunity to come up with strategies that would ensure the full implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

More than 50 representatives from public and private hospitals in the Greater Accra Region are attending the workshop, which would also provide them with further briefing on the implementation on the NHIS. Participants would be taken through topics such as "Medical Record Keeping and Health Insurance", "NHIS Recommended Tariff", "Provider Payment Systems" and "Computerization".

The Scheme, which is expected to provide about 60 per cent coverage, has achieved only 13 per cent, indicating that there is the need to accelerate efforts to ensure maximum coverage by the end of June.

The Ghana Health Service and Greater Accra Regional Support and Coordination Committee are organizing the workshop.

The Committee chaired by Ms Gloria Akuffo, Deputy Greater Accra Regional Minister, is expected to support the setting up of District and Sub-Metro Mutual Health Insurance Schemes through the provision of technical support to the districts.

Miss Gloria Akuffo said it had become necessary for a fast track approach to be adopted at both Regional and District levels to educate service providers and to help them to understand what they would be handling.

"This will ensure that the National Health Insurance Scheme's policies and directives filter through decentralized structures to the grassroots. Likewise plans, suggestions and implementation difficulties would also be routed through the same channel to the national organizational structures to move the implementation forward," she said. 12 May 05