NHI told: Don’t search for the cheapest providers

Member of the parliamentary opposition Julian Fraser has called on the National Health Insurance (NHI) to desist from searching for the cheapest healthcare providers, adding that such cheapening of healthcare services may be bad for some patients.

“I want to tell the NHI to stop eBaying the healthcare service for our people. Don’t go around shopping for the cheapest provider,” he said.

“When somebody go to the NHI, it’s not like checking to see where you can find the cheapest provider for the service. Not everyone this thing work for. They know what I am talking about… Sometimes they make the patient worse after knowing where they have to go to get certain treatment. So they (NHI) got to be careful,” Fraser recently told the House of Assembly.

His call comes at a time when the NHI has been complaining that some healthcare providers are overcharging NHI contributors for services rendered.

NHI Deputy Director, Roy Barry, who recently called for the situation to be addressed, noted that healthcare providers also rejected a fee schedule the NHI had proposed.

The proposal was for the providers to charge NHI patients no more than 5 percent above a fee schedule that would have been set by the NHI.