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Ashanti Development Union, a pressure based in Kumasi is bracing itself for a series of demonstration against what they described as deliberate decision to undermine health care delivery in Ashanti by the National Health Insurance Authority with Capitation. According to the group the refusal of Government and the NHIA to suspend Capitation in the Region which many health care providers have rejected calls for popular uprising to halt the policy. Capitation is a provider payment method in which providers are paid in advance, a pre-determined fixed rate to provide a defined set of services for each individual enrolled with the provider for a fixed period of time. The amount paid to the provider is irrespective of whether that person would seek care or not during the designated period. The pilot capitation exercise in Ashanti region started on 1st January 2012. Spokesperson for Ashanti Development Union, Edmund Oppong Peprah, speaking to the paper said the demonstration on Friday is to renew their opposition to capitation which he indicated is collapsing a lot of Health providers in Ashanti region. He emphasized that his group is not totally against the policy, but are unhappy with the bad faith shown by NHIA regarding the whole capitation implementation in Ashanti region. Mr. Peprah also said it�s a discriminatory against the people and health care providers in Ashanti and must be suspended now or they would embarked on any appropriate means to stop it. He pointed out �if you say capitation is good why are you not introducing it in the other regions of Ghana, why should a pilot project take more than two years, if they don�t have any motive�. But the Chief Executive of NHIA, Slyvester A. Mensah maintains that Capitation is one of the main ways of addressing lapses in provider claims. At a meeting with stakeholders recently he noted �globally capitation has been recognized as the most efficient system in the payment of health providers�. According to him, the two other payment systems the NHIA is using (Fee for service and the Ghana Diagnosis Related Groupings-GDRG) have had various degrees of challenges and the introduction of capitation as an additional payment mechanism was a way to inject more efficiency into the claims payment regime of the NHIA. He said from the Authority�s own monitoring and evaluation of the pilot implementation in the Ashanti Region, as well as that of the independent consultants, they were satisfied with the outcome and ready to replicate the new payment system across the country Mr. Mensah advised against introducing emotions and sensationalism into the implementation of the system. The NHIA Boss said the issue to look at was whether the challenges encountered with the pilot scheme were surmountable and also find the way forward to ensure smooth nationwide implementation. A monitoring and evaluation report on the pilot presented to stakeholders last week by the chairperson of the Technical Sub-committee on Capitation, Professor Irene Agyapong, noted that capitation represents one of the best ways of improving the country�s provider payment regime but submitted that the challenges and deficiencies associated with the implementation of capitation in the Ashanti region could be attributed to a general systems failure and partisan politics. Prof. Agyepong further stated that other factors that negatively affected capitation payment implementation were resource constraint and lack of an enabling environment. She said complex reforms could only be effective if power was diffused rather than concentrated at the top and urged the Ministry of Health to play a lead role in addressing the challenges associated with the implementation of capitation.