Health NZ recovering $91.4m paid in error to providers

Author: Noam Mānuka Lazarus,
Publish Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2026, 4:03pm

Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora made 2075 error payments totalling $91.4 million on Wednesday night.

Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora paid out $91.4 million in error to more than 2000 providers on Wednesday.

It confirmed to the Whanganui Chronicle that it made duplicate claim and invoice payments to 2075 pharmacies and other providers.

“Health New Zealand rapidly identified the error and then moved immediately to rectify within a matter of hours,” Health NZ chief financial officer Bevan McKenzie said.

“Our immediate priorities are recovering the duplicate payments, understanding exactly how the error occurred, and putting measures in place to prevent this from happening again.

“We expect to have a full understanding of the outcome of the recovery process over the next two days.”

About $80 million in duplicate payments were made to pharmacies and the rest to other providers.

Pharmacy owner Shope Olawoyin said both of his pharmacies, Godderidges Pharmacy in Waverley and Wicksteed Pharmacy in Whanganui, were affected.

“It just appeared in the account and a few hours later, it disappeared again.”

“I didn’t know the bank had the power to take the money out of our account without asking us.”

Olawoyin said the pharmacies received the correct payment at 1.36pm on August 5.

The double payment was made at 3.07pm and reversed at 7.37pm, outside their opening hours, he said.

“It was in line with many other things we’re worried about with the way payments are going through, and payments not being sufficient,” Olawoyin said.

He said it was a standard batch payment under their integrated community pharmacy services agreement (ICPSA), which they receive every week.

Pharmacies can opt for fortnightly or weekly standard batch (claim) payments under the ICPSA, which are processed and paid by Health NZ on the 5th, 12th, 20th and 28th day of each month.

Aramoho Pharmacy owner Diane, who only wanted to go by her first name, said it was the second issue her business had with Health NZ payments this month.

“When you put the claim in, you get paid three weeks later, so it was actually a claim from the second week of July.”

A separate payment to their pharmacy, connected to a claim in May, was “clawed back” after a possible miscalculation, she said.

“The same happened in the same months last year.

“I find it surprising that mistakes like this are still happening in 2026. It doesn’t instil confidence that other payments they calculate are correct.”

McKenzie said Health NZ was communicating “directly with affected providers” to make them aware of the issue and any next steps.

“They do not need to take any action with their bank themselves,” he said.

“Services to patients are not affected and providers should continue to operate as normal.”

Noam Mānuka Lazarus (Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara) is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle.