The Provider Payment System of the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana
Abstract
The overriding concern of this paper is to examine opportunities and constraints of provider-payment system being used to manage health insurance in Ghana. Mindful of this objective, the study employed a survey approach to collect data, which involved the use of questionnaires, interviews and observation. Three out of the ten administrative regions were randomly selected to for the study. Thirty insurance schemes and 30 health service providers were randomly selected given that regions were our unit of analysis. Apart from these, 50 subscribers were purposively selected from Greater Accra; Central, Brong-Ahafo, and Ashanti regions were sampled for the study with a response rate of 97%. The results of the study show that inadequate funding characterised by delays in the release of subsidies result in the interruption of payment to service providers. Though the payment system is rated as satisfactory, it does not allow providers to achieve reasonable cash flow and as such it affects the value of health care provided to subscribers. The disruptions in re-imbursements can potentially undermine quality of health services provided to subscribers. It is therefore recommended that the national insurance authority devised mechanisms that will ensure prompt payment to providers as one of the several means of promoting quality healthcare.
Key words: District mutual health insurance scheme; National health insurance scheme; Provider payment system
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/j.sss.1923018420130401.999
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c)
Reminder
We are currently accepting submissions via email only.
The registration and online submission functions have been disabled.
Please send your manuscripts to sss@cscanada.net,or sss@cscanada.org for consideration.
We look forward to receiving your work.
Articles published in Studies in Sociology of Science are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).
STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE Editorial Office
Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org
E-mail:caooc@hotmail.com
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Research & Development Centre of Sciences and Cultures