Savannah News Online Reporting Only What Matters Most
Related Articles
Accra, Ghana – The Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Mobile Membership Renewal Service is a phenomenal innovation worthy of emulation.
He said, “Renewal of NHIS registration via mobile phone has been a phenomenal innovation, eliminating the need for queues, delays and bribery, and also increasing access to health care by those who need the services most.”
He thus urged both the private and public sector management to emulate the NHIS lead example to improve efficiency.
The Vice President was speaking at the climax of the second edition of Africa Public Sector Conference and Awards (APSCA) ceremony held at the MovenPick Hotel in Accra.
He reaffirmed government’s commitment to ensuring Universal Health Coverage (UHC) attainment by 2030 envisaged by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“The health sector in recent times witnessed rapid transformation because of government’s digitization drive. “We are digitizing hospital records to improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery. We expect that the process will be complete across all hospitals within two years.”
“Drones and Decentralized Delivery of Health Services: Ghana has joined Rwanda in using drones to deliver critical medical products, blood products, medical cargo, emergency vaccines, life saving and essential medicines on demand to every part of the country, regardless of road infrastructure.
Mobile Membership Renewal Service
In line with government’s digitization drive, On December 19, 2018, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia launched two technical innovations designed to make the NHIS more accessible to its members and also improve upon the Scheme’s financial management.
Relevance
Via a dedicated short code *929#, the NHIS Mobile Membership Renewal service allows members to check Policy Validity, Medicines list and Benefit Package.
Importantly, members are able to renew membership with the use of a mobile money wallet on any simple mobile phone.
No more long queues at the NHIS District offices thereby creating enough space for staff there to attend to pregnant and indigent members.
The Scheme has become more attractive and so members who left the Scheme are returning thereby increasing the number of persons being covered in line with Universal Health Coverage (UHC) vision of the government.
Combined with the generation of E-Receipts, the much touted innovation tracks payments to streamline the operations of the NHIS and make it more efficient.
The Mobile Membership Renewal Service puts a check on providers by reducing the chances of false claims generation through the option available to members to confirm or deny attendance after every facility visit requiring the use of the NHIS cards.
Simplified Offline Verification allows NHIS provider facilities to verify membership validity with the aid of a mobile phone leading to prompt payment of claims.
Membership
The NHIS active membership has risen from 10 million as at the end of 2016 to 11.7 million.
They have access to services by 4,600 Health Service Providers credentialed by the NHIA across the country.
The Authority has so far cleared the 2016, 2017, 2018 arrears of claims and is on course paying 2019 claims.
By SavannahNewsOnline.Com/Abdul Karim Naatogmah
