Private medical facilities have renewed calls for an urgent revision of laboratory test tariffs, warning that outdated rates are causing financial strain and limiting investment in diagnostic services.

The appeal was made on December 19, in Kigali, during the General Assembly of the Rwanda Private Medical Facilities Association (RPMFA), where members raised concerns that laboratory tariffs dating back to 2017 remain unchanged despite rising operational costs, including equipment, reagents, staffing, and other inputs expenses.

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Although revised medical tariffs—updating the 2017 rates—came into force in July 2025, laboratory tariffs were excluded from the revision. As a result, laboratories are still operating under the old pricing framework, which the association described as one of the major gaps in the new tariff structure.

The association worried that the failure to revise laboratory tariffs is limiting investment in diagnostic tests, forcing some specialised tests to be outsourced abroad. It also raised concerns with the Ministry of Health over other procedures that remain under-costed, in some cases priced even lower than previous tariffs.

Dr Jean-Dieudonné Gatsinga, the Managing Director of Polyclinique du Carrefour, noted that laboratory test tariffs have not been revised for nearly a decade. He explained that while private healthcare facilities have been operating under updated medical tariffs for the past six months, laboratory services are still required to use outdated rates.

"Laboratory equipment, reagents, staff, and other inputs are very costly. Failing to revise laboratory test prices has been an oversight, which is unfortunate,” he said.

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Dr. Dominique-Savio Mugenzi, the Chairman of RPMFA, said the situation is already resulting in financial losses for private health facilities.

"The consequences are financial losses because the prices of reagents have increased. The inputs we use have become more expensive, and since the fees have not been adjusted, health facilities are incurring losses in their laboratory services,” he said.

The association is urging the Ministry of Health – the leading entity in terms of setting medical tariffs as per the current legislation – to address the issue. Responding to the concerns, Athanase Rukundo, the Acting Head of Clinical and Public Health at the Ministry of Health, said the government is aware of the issue.

He stated that revising all components at once – including laboratory services, consumables, routine services, and procedures – would have delayed the entire process for more than a year. As a result, he said, they prioritised items that could be addressed quickly, while others would be handled later.

"This is an issue that we are aware of, and I think it will not take a very long time before it is resolved,” Rukundo said, although he did not provide a specific timeline for when the laboratory tariffs will have been revised.