NHIS To Introduce Electronic Payment

THE NATIONAL Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) will from next year introduce an electronic payment system that will see claims submitted electronically. Currently, claims for payment are submitted manually but is bedevilled with serious challenges. Speaking to Citi News, the Director of Communications at the NHIA, Selorm Adonoo, explained that the manual process of submitting claims would be done electronically through �a software that the NHIS has provided those 47 big facilities on the system.� The software when installed would use a relatively short time to vet and process claims. Mr Adonoo added that �if there is a need for human intervention, the software will alert you and you get it done because of course, there are things that require human intervention.� The new electronic process is aimed at ensuring providers have their monies on time and the provision of enough data to aid decision-making and checking acts of corruption. The new payment system is coming at the heels of recent plans to register subscribers using the biometric system. The NHIA announced a pilot biometric registration exercise in two districts which would be followed by a nationwide registration exercise. The Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Sylvester Mensah, had strongly defended the decision following criticisms from civil society groups that a biometric NHIS system was a duplication of the various national identification systems. According to the Authority, implementing a biometric solution would rather prevent the duplication of records and ensure effective verification (authentication) system at the point of healthcare service delivery.