Health officials in the Upper West Region have warned of a possible collapse of healthcare delivery in the region as a result of the refusal of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to pay claims it owes to health care providers. The authorities issued the warning at a conference to review the 2012 annual health performance of the Upper West Region. According to them, although about 90% of clients in all health facilities in the region are covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) but the NHIA has, since August 2012, failed to pay bills presented to it by health facilities. The situation has compelled most health facilities to borrow from banks and other financial institutions to meet their operational costs. Clement Atampugre, Upper West Regional Accountant of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), bemoaned the situation and said that most health facilities are being denied further financial support due to their continued indebtedness to financial institutions in the region. “As I talk to you now, most of our facilities can no longer borrow from the banks because they owe too much and this has negatively affected their operations,” he reported. Mr. Atampugre added that if the debts go unpaid, “the situation will compel health care providers to cut down essential services to the public.” He appealed to the NHIA to urgently address the problem in order to avoid unnecessary loss of life and to alleviate the pressure that most health facilities are currently going through. Rashid Tindogo, Upper West Regional Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) officer of the NHIS, blamed the situation on the health care providers’ tendency to be late in submitting their bills to the NHIA. “What happens is that people delay in submitting their bills. Even as we speak, you can be sure that some providers have not yet submitted their bills for June and July. We have problems like that. Like people are saying they have not yet received claims for August, it means that those bills came late and that is why they were not included and sent to Accra. If you submitted your bills in August or September, by now your money would have been paid,” Mr. Tindogo added. According to him, the NHIA has yet to receive bills for the last quarter of 2012 from some health care providers in the region. The M&E officer assured health care providers that the NHIA is working hard to pay all outstanding bills from the last quarter of 2012 before the end of February 2013.