Nairobi, July 8 -- At any given moment, somewhere in Kenya, a woman is receiving a chronic disease diagnosis at a stage where treatment is no longer a single outpatient procedure, but rather months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Not to mention the referral process and resulting bill, which can amount to hundreds of thousands of shillings.

In many cases, the disease could have been detected years earlier through routine screening at a fraction of the cost.

According to a regional study on financing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in sub-Saharan Africa, this is largely due to the way the health system pays healthcare providers.

The study, published by the Financing Accelerator Network (FAN) in partnership with the World Bank Group, A...