Private Hospitals to Continue Accepting NHIF as Talks Progress

Private hospitals have agreed to continue offering services to NHIF members for the coming five months while contract talks continue.

“We have been able to engage and ensure Kenyan’s access services. There shall be no halt of services by the private sector and we shall continue to work together hand in hand, collaborating towards ensuring you can access services,” said Health CAS Dr. Mercy Mwangangi.

“Today we have had deliberations that are nested on ensuring service continuity continues and, more importantly, that as we work together as partners, we ensure that services are affordable for the Kenyan,” she added.

NHIF had given healthcare providers until the end of Monday 31, 2022 to sign the contracts, failure to which they threatened to turn away patients covered only by the national insurer.

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The private hospitals accused NHIF of not involving them in the development of the benefit packages and the 2022-2024 contract as envisaged in the constitution.

The contract proposed that the former would dictate what doctors charge, the cost of procedures, and what specialists would be paid. As such, they decided to put on hold the contract until a meeting is held on a mutually agreed new contract.

Kenya Association of Private Hospitals chairman Dr. Abdi Mohamed told the Star NHIF has failed to honor talks with the facilities.

“We wouldn’t want NHIF to collapse so what we need is a balance that is acceptable on both ends,” Mohammed said on Monday.

The old contracts will remain in effect for the next five months, with the new contracts, which had sparked controversy, expected to be signed in March but take effect in July.

Earlier this week, Health CS Mutahi Kagwe complained NHIF had been paying too much to private hospitals, attributing it to medical fraud, including impersonation of beneficiaries.

He noted that claims by contracted facilities jumped from 19.7 billion shilling in the financial year 2015/2016 to 54.6 billion shillings in the financial year 2020/2021.