The Upper West Region incurred a debt of GH¢739,499.81 as administrative cost in the management of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2009, while GH¢4,362,818.49 was paid as claims to health service providers. During the year under review the scheme was able to mobilise premiums amounting to GH¢15,556.20 while administrative fees collected was GH¢462,916.70. Mr John Bosco Zury, Regional Manager of the National Health Insurance Authority, made this known on Thursday in Wa during a performance review seminar for health insurance schemes in the region. He said the decision to make the figures public was to enhance transparency and accountability. Mr Zury said in 2007 the administrative expenses collected was GH¢873,259 and GH¢1,026,233.51 in 2008. He said financial outflows for the payment of claims to health service providers for the same period were GH¢1,930,655.47 and GH¢4,955,011.17 On Financial inflows, he said GH¢416,717.22 and GH¢24,219.20 were mobilised as premium and administrative charges for 2007. In 2008, total premium collected by the schemes amounted to GH¢5,131,122.68 with administrative charges accounting for GH¢137,117.60. Mr Zury said there was the general lack of technical capacity on the part of some NHIS staff, especially with regards to the management of the Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) platform and claims processing. He noted that there was also the need to adequately address the problem of resource constraints. Explaining the way forward, Mr Zury advised the scheme managers to plug all leakages and devise cost containment strategies to guide their daily operations. He underlined the need for the NHIS personnel to scale up the electronic processing of claims and facilitate the rolling out of the ICT component at provider sites to enable them match with the schemes for the electronic claims processing to take off smoothly. Source: GNA