Public hospitals will no longer be paid for medicine they claim to have dispensed if patients say they never got it. Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale announced the change on Tuesday in Nairobi, The Star and The Eastleigh Voice reported. The digital verification system behind it started on November 1.
The system texts patients while they are still at the health facility. The message asks whether they received their prescribed medication. If the patient replies no, the Social Health Authority (SHA) deducts the cost of the drugs from the facility's claim and pays for the other services.
"If he says no, the Social Health Authority, when that facility asks for a claim of that patient, the Social Health Authority will pay everything else but not the medicine," Duale said. He urged Kenyans to check their phones after hospital visits and reply to the messages from the Digital Health Agency (DHA) and SHA. "If you are not given medicine, check your phone. DHA will send you a text," he said.
Duale said the government had received complaints from patients who got consultations and tests but left without their drugs. Some facilities had doctors, clinicians and diagnostic equipment but no medicines, he said. He added that the system aims to ensure facilities are paid only for services they actually provide.
The measure builds on earlier warnings from Duale, The Star reported. In April, he told the Senate that the Digital Health Superhighway had flagged cases where patients went through consultations, laboratory tests and other procedures but got no medicine at hospital pharmacies. He has also raised concern about private pharmacies springing up around public facilities. Some patients end up buying drugs there after treatment.
The government wants county health facilities to buy medicines from the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa). Duale said Kemsa's supply capacity has improved. He added that Kenya uses real-time data to monitor hospital bed capacity, maternal health outcomes, disease trends and medicine availability.
Duale spoke at the first Africa Health Data Forum, co-hosted with the World Health Organization. The forum brought together African governments, the African Union, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and development partners. He called on African countries to build health systems that can communicate with one another. He warned against fragmented platforms and duplicated spending as external development financing falls.