Regulatory Policies

The National Health Insurance System has significantly improved access to medicines for insured patients, measured in increased utilization of facilities and rapidly growing turnover of revolving drug funds. The risk is now that non-rational prescribing and fraud, lead to a growing medicine bill that threatens financial sustainability of National Health insurance scheme (NHIS). On the other hand, National Health insurance agency (NHIA) has the resources and purchasing power to influence provider behavior as well as the market in terms of quality and price the government need to address the challenge of coordinating the various actors and ensure that they work together to develop, review and implement appropriate policies to address the above challenges policy options presented for key areas include: limited but efficient regulatory measures with focus on high risk products, solutions to fix the supply chain with different degrees of private sector participation, thoughts on a sustainable industrial policy for the sector, solutions to limit NHIS’ drug expenditure and measures to improve rational use of drugs[1].

[1] Raja Mohan Reddy. G, Venkatesh M. P., Pramod Kumar T.M., Regulatory Perspectives of Pharmaceutical Products in Ghana, International Journal of Drug Regulatory Affairs, 2015, 2(2), p.8.