NSSF offers monthly credit to hospitals

Labor Minister: Hospitals will admit optional coverage patients

August 11, 2011 - The Minister of Labor, Nicolas Nahas, said that the board of the National Social Security Fund approved a plan to pay credits to hospitals on their outstanding bills.

Hospitals have payable bills which the NSSF still hasn’t covered. According to Nahas, hospital bills have been accumulated throughout 2010 and the first half of 2011 due to the shortage of staff to operate the Maternity and Sickness Fund.

Nahas said that the hospitals will admit all NSSF patients, including those registered in the optional coverage fund.
The NSSF will offer credits to each hospital equivalent to the average of its outstanding bills accumulated throughout 2010, plus 20 percent. Nahas said this plan would help absorb the backlog account owing to hospitals.

The Private Hospitals’ Syndicate sees the NSSF’s arrangement as a temporary solution which does not resolve the real crisis.

NSSF officials say the fund suffers fiscal inequity along with a painstaking deficit in human resources.