Mr Emmanuel Reinford Okyere, Western Regional Manager of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), on Wednesday advised clients of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) against privately contacting doctors and other health personnel to write prescriptions for them. Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Takoradi, he said it was wrong for clients to use such prescriptions to collect drugs from accredited pharmacies on the account of the scheme. Mr Okyere said the proper thing for clients of the scheme to do is to go through the hospital system when they are sick instead of seeing doctors in their homes and offices for stamped prescriptions. He said all prescriptions issued on the account of the scheme should be written at hospitals and endorsed by qualified health personnel. Mr. Okyere also advised clients against using expired NHIS identity card to access health as this amounts to fraud. He said those caught engaging in this practice would face appropriate sanctions. He asked management of district health insurance schemes, clients and service providers to comply with the relevant laws and regulations governing the operation of the NHIS. He said the laws and regulations include NHIS Act 650, National Health Insurance Regulation 2004 (LI 1809), Financial Administration Act, Audit Act and acts on management of funds. Mr Okyere said the scheme is going to be made more attractive this year because the schemes, clients and service providers would be networked. He said this would shorten the time clients spend at hospitals and make processing of NHIS identity cards and claims faster. Source: GNA