SHA to settle monthly hospital claims by 14th, Duale pledges as he takes over Afya House

The new Cabinet Secretary for Health, Aden Duale, has assured that the Social Health Authority (SHA) will, going forward, settle hospital claims by the 14th of each month to avoid pending bills to health providers.

Duale, who was deployed to the health docket on March 26 after a Cabinet reshuffle, announced this on Tuesday after taking over from Deborah Barasa at the Ministry of Health (MoH) Afya House headquarters in Nairobi.

Duale pledged to ensure all system hitches with the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) are addressed and to expedite pending and perennial human resource matters under the ministry.

“Effective today, 1st April 2025, the ICU & HDU bed rebate has been enhanced to Ksh.28,000 per day, while the oncology package for cancer patients has been enhanced to Ksh.550,000 per person,” added Duale.

Additionally, the minister said the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) will get a Ksh.1.5 billion recapitalisation through the Supplementary Budget and pledged to negotiate for a credit facility of up to Ksh.5 billion for the agency.

This, said Duale, is aimed at ensuring KEMSA’s order fill rate goes up to 90 per cent, guaranteeing commodity security across the country, promoting local manufacturing and enabling bulk procurement to reduce high commodity costs.

He added that by October 1, all public health facilities will be digitised.

Pending bills from the now defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), which SHIF replaced last October, have caused a feud between private hospitals and the government.

Earlier this month, the facilities briefly suspended offering services under SHIF and later resumed after President William Ruto, on March 5, pledged his government would pay all facilities with pending NHIF claims under Ksh.10 million.

At the same time, Duale has since appointed a 19-member committee to review pending bills owed to hospitals by the old public health insurance scheme.