Mr. Fred Appiah, Central Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), has called for urgent and innovative strategies to ensure quality, accessible and affordable healthcare and to enable continuous expansion of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
Mr. Fred Appiah made this known at a stakeholders’ engagement in the Gomoa District NHIS at Apam. According to him, it is only continuous expansion of NHIS that can put Ghana on the radar above her counterparts in the West Sub-Region in the pursuit of Universal Health Care (UHC) by 2030.
The Director charged the stakeholders to inform their community members on the need to link their NHIS and Ghana cards before proceeding to the hospital, adding that children under 15 years and pregnant women must however, continue to use their NHIS cards to access healthcare until further notice.
Mr. Appiah thus, informed the gathering that the NHIA-Ghana Card linkage is to allow NHIS registered members to use the Ghana Card to access healthcare service under the Scheme, saying the benefit of the collaboration include synchronization of data for a much cleaner database.
According to Mr. Appiah, Ghana’s goal to achieve the UHC by 2030 is hinged on the NHIS with a benchmark at of least 80 percent of the country’s population to be enrolled unto the Scheme by the targeted year.
“The year 2030 is just eight years away, hence, there is urgent need for innovative strategies on all fronts including all stakeholders if the county must achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), of the UHC.”
Mr. Fred Appiah
Mr. Appiah indicated that a bi-partisan goodwill and commitment, sustainable innovation, progressive financial model, among others is the secret behind Ghana’s success in sustaining the NHIS, which undoubtedly is one of the essential tools for attaining the UHC.
Many people Using NHIS
The Regional Director moreover, informed the gathering that, despite its challenges, there is no doubt that the NHIS has given access to many people who have been denied healthcare in various forms due to their inability to pay for the services needed.
“As part of the digitalization effort, the NHIS has embarked on some important solution-based interventions aimed at increasing the scheme membership and to make the NHIS subscriber happy.”
Mr. Fred Appiah
Key among the current innovations, Mr. Appiah added, is the NHIS Mobile Renewal Service which allows subscribers to renew their membership anywhere, anytime on their mobile phones, using the short code *929#.
Mr. Appiah disclosed that, the Mobile Renewal Service total membership has catapulted to 25,358,957 with an active membership of 16,759,358 of which Central Region contributed 1,269,478 at the end of 2021, with majority of them being females.
“Since the introduction of the NHIS, it has grown to become a major instrument for financing healthcare delivery. Currently, the Scheme contributed more than 85 percent of service delivery income of public and quasi-public health care facilities.”
Mr. Fred Appiah
Meanwhile, the benefit package of the Scheme, which covers 95 percent of diseases in the country with 521 medicines in the approved medicine list, now included breast, cervical and four child cancers and family planning services, he added.
The meeting under the theme: “Using the Ghana Card for Expanding Access to Healthcare, the Role of stakeholders,” was attended by stakeholders of the Scheme including, Assembly members, Ghana Health Service, Ghana education Service and Service providers. It discussed the roles of stakeholders in expanding access to healthcare through the NHIS and the usage of the Ghana card.
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