Religious leaders have given the government until March next year to clear old debts it owes their hospitals through the defunct NHIF.
The debts run into billions of shillings and some go back six years.
The leaders, who met Health CS Deborah Barasa in Nairobi on Monday, said in total, the government owes faith-based facilities Sh4 billion for services under the National Health Insurance Fund and SHA.
But the government had only paid them Sh938 million.
However, yesterday the government released Sh3.7 billion in pending bills owed to various health facilities across the country.
The amount includes Sh1.4 billion for the defunct NHIF claims.
On Monday, Tenwek Mission Hospital chair Bishop Robert Lang’at had said they were running out of patience.
“We do appreciate the commitments that have been made that October Social Health Authority claims will be cleared this week, but we do have billions worth of claims under NHIF. And that is still the kizungumkuti (chaos) that is in all of our minds,” he said.
“We feel like the patience is wearing out because our facilities are moving into unsustainability moving forward.”
Jacinta Mutegi, head of Health at the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops confirmed they had proposed a deadline to clear old debts.
“As we continue now to consistently follow up and get commitments, and we’ve given a proposal of the timelines, we are hoping these payments can be made. We have proposed that we work with March of 2025,” she said.
The Christian Hospitals Association of Kenya said most of that debt has been cleared for payment, by receiving all the necessary approvals, but has not been settled.
“So out of that, I think about Sh2.7 billion were already cleared through, ready to receive payment, and there was another Sh1.3 billion out there in the process. But we probably are not accounting for what is still in the facilities, yet to be processed in the system, or where there was issues to be cleared before it can reflect on the system,” Samuel Mwenda, CHAK secretary general said.
Mwenda also confirmed the backlog of debts.
“Some of these payments are historical. Some of them go back six years, five years, at various stages. And I think our concern has been commitment, how we are closing this? And it’s one of the recommendations that we have a time period for closure of the old payments,” he said.
“Our recommendation is let’s sort out the old, pending claims and so on for services.”
SHA is currently collecting 2.7 per cent of earnings of all registered members, expected to amount to Sh148 billion in one year.
This is double what NHIF used to collect in one year.
Mwenda said they were having a problem with the IT system that supports SHA, but these issues are being resolved on a rolling basis.
He also appealed for changes to the new system so that Kenyans can receive outpatient services in Level 5 Hospitals.
CS Barasa said as of November 25,
more than 15 million Kenyans had
registered for SHA.
