Policymakers' perspective on the importance of procedural fairness to implement and sustain health financing reforms.

Fair process is instrumental to implementing and sustaining health financing reforms. Ensuring a fair process during the design and adoption phases can garner political capital and secure a sense of citizens' ownership. This will prove useful when reforms are contested before benefits are yet to be fully materialized.

Prevalence and quality of antihypertensive therapy among hypertension patients enrolled in the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme.

Background: Hypertension is a leading cause of morbidity in Ghana. However, there is insufficient data on the prevalence and quality of antihypertensive therapy.

Objectives: To describe the prevalence of use and quality of antihypertensive therapy.

What do we need to know? Data sources to support evidence-based decisions using health technology assessment in Ghana.

Background: Evidence-based decision-making for prioritising health is assisted by health technology assessment (HTA) to integrate data on effectiveness, costs and equity to support transparent decisions. Ghana is moving towards universal health coverage, facilitated mainly by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) established in 2003. The Government of Ghana is committed to institutionalising HTA for priority-setting.

Implementing health technology assessment in Ghana to support universal health coverage: building relationships that focus on people, policy, and process.

Ghana is one of the few African countries to enact legislation and earmark significant funding to establish universal health coverage (UHC) through the National Health Insurance Scheme, although donor funds have declined recently. Given a disproportionate level of spending on medicines, health technology assessment (HTA) can support resource allocation decisions in the face of highly constrained budgets, as commonly found in low-resource settings. The Ghanaian Ministry of Health, supported by the International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI), initiated a HTA study in 2016 to examine the cost-effectiveness of antihypertensive medicines.

A review of the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme claims database: possibilities and limits for drug utilization research.

Background: There are inadequate data on prescribed drug utilization in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Drug utilization research (DUR) in this region is hampered by lack of access to databases that capture prescribed drug utilization such as health insurance claims, electronic medical records and disease registries. The primary objective of this MiniReview was to describe the content of the NHIS claims database in the context of the health care system in Ghana.

Evaluating the impact of the national health insurance scheme of Ghana on out of pocket expenditures: a systematic review.

Background: Approximately 150 million people suffer from financial catastrophe annually because of out-of-pocket expenditures (OOPEs) on health. Although the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) of Ghana was designed to promote universal health coverage, OOPEs as a proportion of total health expenditures remains elevated at 26%, exceeding the WHO's recommendations of less than 15-20%. To determine whether enrollment in the NHIS reduces the likelihood of OOPEs and catastrophic health expenditures (CHEs) in Ghana, we undertook a systematic review of the published literature.

Reducing medical claims cost to Ghana's National Health Insurance scheme: a cross-sectional comparative assessment of the paper- and electronic-based claims reviews.

Background: A robust medical claims review system is crucial for addressing fraud and abuse and ensuring financial viability of health insurance organisations. This paper assesses claims adjustment rate of the paper- and electronic-based claims reviews of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Ghana.

Methods: The study was a cross-sectional comparative assessment of paper- and electronic-based claims reviews of the NHIS.