NHIA Responds To Physician Assistants

The National Health Insurance Authority’s (NHIA) attention has been drawn to comments from the Physician Assistants Association in the mainstream and social media networks over a perception of being disenfranchised by the NHIA.

Physician Assistants in private practice are regulated by 3 agencies: HeFRA for the accreditation and license of the facility, Medical & Dental Council for the regulation of Physician Assistants & and their scope of practice and NHIA for credentialing to allow them to serve NHIS members. In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Medical and Dental Council and Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HEFRA), the Authority in February this year initiated the dialogue process with the leadership of Physician Assistants regarding the regulatory standards of all 3 agencies as pertained to Physician Assistants. This was truncated by the Corona Virus pandemic. We are still working through how best to implement all the standards.

As a regulator, the Authority’s primary focus is to ensure that Ghanaian residents have access to quality health care and the safety of NHIS members is guaranteed. The NHIA re-iterates that we have no interest in discriminating against any group of health care providers in Ghana.

Guided by quality standards and protocols that Ghana has set for the health sector, we are working with stakeholders such as the Medical and Dental Council and Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HEFRA), under the auspices of the Ministry of Health (MOH), to ensure quality improvement.

The NHIA is open to discussions with any recognized groups in the health sector who may feel disenfranchised in any way to dialogue and reach an amicable solution.

The NHIA remains Ghana’s lead vehicle to attaining Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030 and will continue to work with its stakeholders to achieve Universal access.

Source: NHIA Corporate Affairs Directorate