Management and staff of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) last Thursday, November 30, Marched through some principal streets in the Tamale metropolis to educate the general public about their digital mobile application known as My NHIS App.
The application provides an easy-to-use and modern digital platform to allow NHIS subscribers across the country to access membership services.
The technology enables one to link their NHIS card to their National Identification card also known as Ghana card and can also register a new subscriber onto the program without visiting their offices.
Mr. Issahaque Abdul Latif, the Northern Regional Director of the NHIA while addressing the media after the walk said the exercise was a nationwide activity organized to create public awareness about the mobile application.
He indicated that the NHIA is leveraging on technology in terms of mobile renewals and linking the NHIS card to the Ghana card, adding the innovation is to further propel clients to register and enroll onto the policy with their Ghana card and be issued their NHIS card.
“When it was launched last year, we looked at other features that could be added to it and that is exactly what we have done and we have to sell the message of the new My NHIS App.”
He added the exercise was therefore to visit the market places, lorry parks, shops among other public places to educate the populace about the benefits of the digital platform.
Mr. Latif observed the public response and acceptability of the technology was heavy and amazing, stating, “When we were going out, we took about five hundred flyers thinking if we’re able to talk to about five hundred people [that will be okay] but by the time we got to the Goil fueling station, all the five hundred had gone and we had to in for an additional five hundred”.
He explained that the App provides an opportunity for members to interact directly with the National Health Insurance Authority, saying until the application was developed, the main complaints system was to call through the complaints center or visit any NHIS district office.
He however emphasized with the introduction of the mobile application, persons who have downloaded it can interact directly with the authority under the messaging section, stressing there are personnel on standby to respond to all public concerns and complaints, whether it is about a facility or the conduct of any staff member.
“Added as part of the App is the opportunity to identify a nearby health facility. Supposing you just arrived in Tamale and you’re sick, you have your NHIS card and you want to go to a facility, you don’t need to ask somebody; you just to the App and it will tell you the nearby facility and in fact when you press on the map, it will lead you directly and tell the number of kilometers you’re from the nearest facility” he said.
Meanwhile, the exercise forms part of a series of activities outlined to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the National Health Insurance Authority.
The policy was introduced in 2003 under the erstwhile John Agyekum Kufour administration as a mechanism to removing financial barriers to access to healthcare.
