The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has instructed the Healthcare Providers Association of Nigeria (HCPAN) to cancel its planned shutdown of private health insurance services.
Recall that the HCPAN had given a deadline of January 31, 2022, for Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) in private health insurance to accede to their demand of a 400 per cent tariff increase, else they would shut down their services. They stated that their decision was due to poor tariffs and the huge backlog of debts.
NHIS Executive Secretary Prof Mohammed Sambo, said the private healthcare providers and HMOs have reached an agreement to shelve the action while both bodies come up with an agreed and revised tariff in two weeks.
He said: “We summoned a meeting to resolve the situation. Initially, we received the news on what the HCPAN has done and felt it was not appropriate because the law establishing health insurance does not allow anybody to lower the price but the NHIS. Therefore, HCPAN cannot unilaterally review any tariff.
“Secondly, the tariff increase is not for the entire scheme. There is what they call a private plan. The private plane is a pseudo-arrangement as far as I am concerned, between healthcare providers and health maintenance organisations. The private plan is alien to the law of health insurance.
“We concluded that first, the HCPAN should suspend that new tariff immediately, and they all agreed. Second, NHIS is going to quickly assess what is going on in that private life to ascertain whether they are doing insurance or not. Third, HMOs and HCPAN should sit down and negotiate prices in order not to paralyze services in Nigeria. Finally, we will now come back with evidence-based information and take the next line of action.”
