NSHIP picks domestic agencies for performance-based finance

The Nigeria State Health Investment Project (NSHIP) has taken on indigenous agents for the first time to verify claims of performance before it can pay for health services offered under a performance-based model. The project, modeling a new way of financing health by paying on performance basis, has also expanded to include five more states—Taraba, […]

The Nigeria State Health Investment Project (NSHIP) has taken on indigenous agents for the first time to verify claims of performance before it can pay for health services offered under a performance-based model.

The project, modeling a new way of financing health by paying on performance basis, has also expanded to include five more states—Taraba, Gombe, Borno, Yobe and Bauchi—as Additional Financing-NSHIP.

The task of verifying claims of performance had been outsourced to Oxford Policy Management since 2013 in Ondo, Adamawa and Nasarawa.

This is the first time local verifiers take on the role of verification.

National Primary Health Care Development Agency in Abuja on Thursday awarded contracts to a total 11 verification agencies, taken from an initial 49 that sent in expressions of interest.

The $500 million AF-NSHIP, funded by the World Bank, pays health centres on the basis of services they deliver, number of clients reached and extent of care—all indicators that verification agents must confirm before payment.

It is hoped the performance-based finance model, if proven successful, would eventually roll out nationwide, said NPHCDA executive director Faisal Shuaib.

“In the course of the last few years, we have been able to learn the processes, and there are indigenous firms that have gone through a transparent and rigorous process that justifies our committing funds to ensure in the process of doing this work, they also building capacity so that in the future we will able to have these verifiers not just in eight states but all across the country,” he said.

Eight agencies will verify services claims, and the other three independent agencies will counter verify over the next 12 months before they are up for contract renewal on performance.

Their work comes amidst concern that some health workers may have falsified data to cover up services they should have delivered or colluded to “provide a semblance of quality,” according to Shuaib.

“Dig and ask very tough questions. It will break our hearts to hear of any collusion to falsify data to show [performance-based financing] is doing well.”

“Verification is the backbone of this project, so we must have credible and capable people to do it,” said Binta Ismail, national coordinator of NSHIP.