Healthcare providers that have been held back from completing their Social Health Authority (SHA) contracts by five specific compliance documents can now proceed under conditional contracts, with the authority giving them until November 4, 2026, to clear the outstanding requirements.
The temporary arrangement, which took effect immediately, gives eligible providers a one-month window to complete the documents while allowing the contracting and onboarding process to continue.
The five documents covered by the moratorium are the National Social Security Fund certificate, National Environment Management Authority licence, Fire Safety Compliance Certificate, National Council for Persons with Disabilities Compliance Certificate, and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner Data Processor and Data Controller certificates.
SHA said the move is meant to make it easier for eligible healthcare providers to complete the contracting process without having to wait for every one of the five documents before they can proceed.
Under the new arrangement, providers completing their contracts online must state whether each of the five documents is available or not available.
They have also been instructed to upload every document that is already in their possession as part of the e-contracting process.
A provider who has fulfilled all the other mandatory contracting conditions but lacks one or more of the documents covered by the moratorium may be issued with a conditional contract.
Such a contract will only remain valid until November 4, 2026, by which time the provider will be expected to have obtained and submitted the missing documents.
SHA has made clear that the temporary measure should not be viewed as a cancellation of the affected requirements.
"The moratorium does not waive the requirement to obtain the outstanding mandatory documents," SHA said in the notice.
Providers who already have the full set of required documents and satisfy the other conditions for contracting will be eligible for contracts lasting three years.
The temporary relief applies only to the five documents listed by SHA and does not extend to other requirements that providers must meet before being contracted.
Among the documents that remain mandatory are the SHA Compliance Certificate and the Kenya Revenue Authority Tax Compliance Certificate.
Healthcare providers have therefore been asked to make full use of the e-contracting process by declaring the status of each required document and submitting those that are already available.
Those granted conditional contracts will be expected to use the period before November 4 to secure any outstanding documents and complete their compliance requirements.
SHA said the arrangement will support the contracting and onboarding of eligible healthcare providers while ensuring that the outstanding documents are eventually obtained.
The authority has stressed that the one-month moratorium only gives affected providers additional time to meet the five requirements and does not permanently remove any of them.