Association of Private Medical Labs want health insurance capitation
Members of the Association of Private Medical Laboratories, Ghana (APML) have called on the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to, as a matter of urgency, integrate them onto the capitation policy.
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While admitting that a few of its members had been migrated onto the capitation policy, the group said those participating in the policy had been deprived of their money.
The president of the association, Mr Hudson Afadi Larbie, said this at the association’s first annual general meeting in Accra.
The three-day forum brought together private medical laboratory practitioners throughout the country to learn innovative ways of meeting the growing demands of the public as far as their health needs are concerned.
Lack of clients
Explaining how the situation had affected their operation, Mr Larbie said the various health care facilities had refused to refer patients to private medical laboratories for their services.
“The health care facilities no longer refer patients to our outfit for services. Meanwhile, those on the capitation policy are not receiving their money from the NHIA for reasons best known to the authority,” he lamented.
That, he said, had affected their businesses as an association, causing most of their members operating to grind to a halt.
When asked the measures the group had put in place to address the situation, the President stated that the association had had several meetings with officials from the NHIA but the engagement yielded no positive result.
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He, however, assured members that there was still hope, and called them to be committed to the activities of the association.
Mr Larbie further called on the Ministry of Health to involve the APML in all its activities.
Theme of occasion
Speaking on the theme, “Repositioning of quality medical laboratory practice in a regulated environment,” the President of the Association of Biomedical Scientists (GABMLS), Mr Prince Sodoke Amuzu, challenged laboratory practitioners to conform to international standards.
He noted that the regulation of the activities of the association would help do away with quack practitioners in the system who posed a lot of danger to patients.
Director of Institutional care
The Director of Institutional Care at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Samuel Kaba, emphasised the importance of laboratory services in the country, adding that “a hospital without lab service is incomplete.”
He indicated that health service delivery was cyclical in nature, saying that every personnel in a health care facility depended on each other for smooth operation of the service.