The Healthcare Providers Association of Nigeria has said the new tariffs to be paid to its members by Health Maintenance Organisations under the private health insurance scheme will be implemented starting from February 1, 2022.
The President, HCPAN, Dr Adeyeye Arigbabuwo, said this on Tuesday in Lagos during a press briefing, where it addressed the “astronomic rising costs of health goods and services matched against abysmally low reimbursement by the HMOs in private health insurance”.
He said this followed a decision reached by HCPAN with its various groups and members who are involved in private health insurance in Nigeria.
Arigbabuwo said the association resolved “that all existing tariffs/contracts of private health insurance business with our association and members nationwide are due to expire 31st January 2022. They are therefore necessary for immediate adjustment effective 1st February 2022.
“That the tariffs released by HCPAN recently are the minimum acceptable to HCPAN across the country. That a need for periodic review of the tariffs may be with or without further notification as the current trends of increased costs of goods and services of health care in the country have not given room for long and predictable market forces.”
Arigbabuwo said the HMOs across the country should see the intention and purposes of HCPAN as a product of fairness in good faith to keep the health insurance initiatives in Nigeria afloat.
“That the HMOs should call for an adjustment of the hitherto existing contract documents as they relate to tariffs and adjust same using the HCPAN tariffs just released as the benchmark,” he said.
He expressed worry that the various facilities were threatened by serious attrition and fortification of qualified professionals if such workers and employees were being continuously poorly paid, coupled with the devaluation of the naira.
“General inflationary trends are the norms now; the costs of virtually all goods and services have gone up in several folds in the last 15 years but worse still in the last three years and indeed unbearable in the last quarter of 2021. No one has thought it normal or fair to review the reimbursement mechanism and valuation for the private health sector,” the HCPAN president said.
