Ras Boateng, Chief Executive Officer of National Health Insurance Council has called for uniform reimbursement mechanism to sustain the National Health Insurance Scheme. He said the mechanism should be acceptable by the council, various schemes and the major provider groups, Ghana Health Service which runs about 70 per cent of all healthcare facilities in the country, Christian Health Association of Ghana, quasi-government and private practitioners. Mr Boateng made the call when addressing the opening session of a two-day Stakeholders Meeting to address issues of the New NHIS Provider Tariff Structure and the Medicine List in Accra. He pointed out that driving every health insurance system were the networks of provider systems, strong and cost-effective tariff structure and drug formulary. Mr Boateng said to address these issues; the council used an accreditation process to contract with providers, tariff structure to reimburse providers and medicine list to avail NHIS members to both prescribed over-the-counter medicines. He said without streamlining the existing tariffs into a single NHIC-produced tariff would threaten the sustainability of the NHIS, adding; "acceptable rates would increase provider participation, thus reducing congestion at current NHIC accredited facilities." Mr Boateng said surgical procedures should be classified using the principles similar to those used in the designing of the diagnosis related groups. He explained that the meeting was not for negotiations, but policy formulation for stakeholders to come out with a common framework to be used as the basis to develop other reimbursement mechanisms. "This will help us to continue to provide affordable quality healthcare to the people of Ghana while containing cost," Mr Boateng added. Source: GNA