Communications and Media Relations Manager at the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Barima Sarpong, has disclosed that his outfit will within the next 18 months fully digitise its operations.

This, according to him, is part of the vision of the CEO of the Authority, Bernard Okoe-Boye to transform the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

He stated that the digitisation will also address delays associated with claims by healthcare providers under the NHIS.

Mr. Sarpong made the comment while addressing concerns raised about the scheme on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Wednesday, July 13.

He acknowledged that delay in payment of claims is a key challenge that is derailing the progress of the scheme. The digitisation of operations would therefore help resolve it.

“On the issue of the delayed claims, there isn’t just a single factor. Per arrangement with providers, a provider has about 60 days to prepare a claim and submit it. Some exhaust the 60 days, others submit on time, and others even go beyond the 60 days.

“But whatever the case, per the same agreement the NHIS has got, it takes 90 days which is also about three months. So because of backlog we would usually use the 90 days to vet and process the claim and this arrangement gives a window of about 5 months to owe them and we realise that this does not help.”

“So as part of his vision, the CEO of the NHIA has promised that in about 12 to 18 months, we are going fully electronic in terms of claims management. Previous CEOs, to the credit of Dr Samuel Yaw Annor and Dr Lydia Djane Selby, did their best and as of now we have about 42% of our claims being processed electronically but the aim is to reach at least 80% to 100%,” he said.