Pole about your Cucu..Glad she is doing better.

When I said herding cats, I meant that it will be almost impossible to streamline the system with so many clinics/hospitals willing to scam people. If on the other hand NHIF funds were to support a single payer, it might be easier to streamline. Private hospitals are in this to make money. They are definitely not subsidizing public facilities.

Never heard of overbilling to compensate for late payments..

That bit is true, my mum told me the same goes on in Nakuru, and the queus are longer than in public hospitals

Not really.

I was once involved in the development of an Insurance/Medical cover for low income people.One of the things that we looked at was the health facilities to work with.This was to take care of quality as well as work as a control measure.It cannot be open to all facilities otherwise even the Mugo Wa Wairimus of this world would benefit.

The considerations were location,size pf facility,population size and there economic profile etc.

One notable observation was that once people especially the lower income get the cover they imagine its a ticket to spending.They would passby the hospitals after church on sunday like an outing to go for general check up.Others would go to the dentist and order for Sensodyne,mouthwash na kadhalika.

This called for the above measures.And which may explain why some agencies have been recruited as well as co-payment in some hospitals.