NHIA CAPITATION TO KICK OFF IN THE VOLTA REGION.

A team of officials from National Health Insurance Authority yesterday paid a working visit to the Volta regional minister and his deputy to have a consultation meeting on the way forward in implementing the NHIS capitation provider payment mechanism which started as a pilot in Ashanti region.

Capitation is a provider payment method in which providers are paid, typically in advance, a pre-determined fixed rate to provide a defined set of services for each individual enrolled with the provider for a fixed period of time.

The amount paid to the provider is irrespective of whether that person would seek care or not during the designated period.

The leader of the delegation, Mr. Nathaniel Otoo; who is also the deputy chief executive in charge of operations said their visit is part of measures to prepare the grounds the roll out of the biometric registration system and the capitation system. He outlined some of the benefits of the capitation system which includes provision of money to health providers even before they render their services to subscribers. According to him, the two other payment systems the NHIA is using (Fee for service and the Ghana Diagnosis Related Groupings-GDRG) have had various degrees of challenges and the introduction of capitation as an additional payment mechanism was a way to inject more efficiency into the claims payment regime of the NHIA and also improve upon patient to doctor relation in our health centers.

Mr Anthony Gingong the project coordinator of the nationwide capitation roll out program called for cooperation, partnership and collaboration among all stakeholders. He also informed the people of the region on the NHIA’s plans to undertake series of sensitization and stakeholders’ consultation meetings on the project and once again called for public involvement to successfully roll out the project.

The Regional Minister Hon, Joseph Nii Laryea Afortey Agbo and the Deputy Hon Francis Ganyaglo assured the delegation of their full support in implementing the policy in the region.