Public misperception about NHI and costs to deliver patient care
Interim CEO at the BVI Health Services Authority (BVIHSA), Dr June Samuel, said there is a misperception over the cost of services associated with the National Health Insurance (NHI) and the BVIHSA.
“At the end of the day what is paid for is not necessarily the cost to deliver the service,” Dr Samuel said on the Talking Points radio show about the NHI coverage recently.
According to Dr Samuel, the BVIHSA not only has a responsibility to ensure they are providing healthcare services, but also to ensure that those services are provided in a cost-efficient and effective manner.
“Some of that work is ongoing, but I think a lot of times there is misperception about the cost to deliver the services,“ Dr Samuel added.
While expressing that there needs to be a reset at the organisation, Dr Samuel said it is pointless for the public to have any sort of ‘love-hate’ relationship with the NHI.
She explained that in order for the NHI – as the primary payer of healthcare services – to function properly, remittances have to be made, collections have to be taken from contributors and there have to be checks and balances in terms of what is taken in versus what is paid out, among other things.
“There’s a lot of demand on the Health Services Authority and there is a lot of demand because it is the only public health facility in the country and it is the facility that has to be able to deliver healthcare to individuals who may not be able to access healthcare elsewhere. So, at the end of the day we must be the default that persons can come to,“ Dr Samuel stated.
She also noted that whenever there is an expectation of the services that have to be delivered, there should always be a discussion about how this is balanced with the cost of delivering those services and how the delivery of those services is resourced.
According to Dr Samuel, not only has the cost for the delivery of healthcare services skyrocketed in the territory, but the expectation of the range and type of services that should be provided has climbed as well.
“When you look at how that is paid for, there is an imbalance there,” she stated.
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In other words, you are charged more for medical services than what NHI will pay for.
The NHI has been used as a big fat piggy bank for ALL the private doctors..$80M per year!
When you look at how that is paid for, there is an imbalance there,” she stated.
Well many of us said this would happen because the population in the BVI was too small to sustain this type of insurance.
Here is my suggestion….include a one dollar tax on those crew ship passengers who are not spending enough anyway. This is something you can increase by 25 cents at a time SLOWELY that will be palatable.
The use of medical assistants for certain procedures like , hygiene, dispense certain medication, blood draw….etc working directly under an RN could save a bundle as well. This will also provide employment for young people many of whom may become RN’s and even doctors.
What a magnificent suggestion! I applaud your Comment.??
Right, let’s try to make someone else, preferably from elsewhere, pay. Arrival tax, environmental tax, departure tax, security tax, and now a medical tax. No doubt tourists are seeking all manner of places where instead of enjoying their hard earned cash, they can just turn it over in foreign lands for others to use.
Medical economics are quite complicated. There are facility costs (including maintenance, depreciation, upgrades), equipment costs, cost of consumables, drugs etc, costs for insurance, as well as cost of staff who may be employees or contractors. You also have to factor in that some people won’t pay. The piece basically says NHI coverage is less than the cost of service, so there are patient out of pocket costs. But what we don’t know is how the costs of services are derived or how NHI decides what they’ll reimburse. The latter I suspect has something to do with not receiving taxes withheld, and quite posiibly from having a system too ambitious for its size.
Prosecute all the employers who are deducting from their staff for NHI each pay check and not paying it into the system, you all know who these thieves are and do nothing to stop them.
Possibly true.
We need a published study of yearly private medical cost to consumer since NHI began. That might help us with decision making regarding this system.
Too many people pay into NHI with no extra cash to cover necessary procedures currently being cut.
Maybe develop a board that assesses costs charged to NHI, oversees hospital and clinic budgets and investigates payments….oh, do we have that already?
huh.
Yea, really! $200 for an eye examine. Only one answer… Blatant, condoned robbery by the providers and the government.
Also notices what used to be the total cost of exams is now the co-pay, so they still collect from us and then take NHI to the cleaners.
All the consultants that were ever asked to do a feasibility on the NHI ever being viable said no it wouldn’t with the current working population paying in at 7% . So why did the government go ahead other than with the intention of bleeding it dry already in the knowledge it would certainly fail.
A certain someone needed to be paid back their $7M lost investment @ L@mbert.
And yet he is STILL in there! Who is to blame for that….. the voters!
What happened to the services provided by the health clinics in the districts. Before, there was a day for seniors, a day for babies, a day the general doctor would come and there was no cost or a minimal cost. Now that has gone through the door. Just so the private clinics could rape NHI and build their empires. Better we all move to Cuba.
So he says, if there is no money we will accept you unless we can give you the medicine, if there is money we will use it for some in particular and if there is no cure for that disease we will let you die and period
LET ASK THE CHICKEN HAWK FROM VG , WHO WAS SCOOPING OUT PEOPLE WHO WORKED FOR AN HONEST LIVING ,AND THE ONLY THING THAT HIS EVIL MIND COULD OF CONSTRUCTIVELY COME UP WITH / IS HOW TO TAX THEM AGAIN ON THEIR OWN MONEY THAT THEY DONE PAID ALREADY ( THAT IS PURE EVILNESS ) AND HE THINK HE IS A GENIUS / SO SINCE HE KNOW HOW MUCH GOING OUT , THEN HE SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW MUCH THATS NOT BEING PAID IN ? ( OR THE ONE IN MIAMI , WHO SAID GE GOT 2 MILLION OFF AH THEM NIGG**S ?
Even if NIH collects everything that is owed to them it still will no be able to meet its bills. The population must be over 50,000 for NIH to break even. The sensible thing to have been done then would be to introduce a 3% health tax 2% by employees and 1% by employers thereby increasing government healthcare revenues to pay for the uninsured and the insurance companies would be stuck with these big bills because the grater part of the population had private insurance then. Now the private insurers have far less clients, possibly the same revenue (because they jack up the cost) and far less claims because they are now secondary insurers and NHI the primary insurer pays the big bills. Guess what we are stuck with NIH which I predict will soon move to 8% contributions, which will still be inadequate to cover cost.