Subscribers of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) want management of the scheme to establish client complaints center across the major hospitals in the northern region and other parts of the country to address the teething issues undermining the policy.
The persistent complaints of service providers allegedly frustrating clients using the health insurance card to access healthcare services was the basic factor for this call and the beneficiaries believe the creation of such service center will promptly mitigate the situation for the policy to become more attractive to the populace.
Management of the National Health Insurance Authority in the Northern Region on Wednesday (26th January, 2022) met with beneficiaries of the scheme in the informal sector, representatives of political parties and media practitioners in Tamale to elicit their input as part activities to prepare the 2022 to 2025 medium-term strategic plan.
The beneficiaries in their respective submissions urged the authority to intensive public education on the benefit packages, do frequent monitoring of the health facilities, advertise the medicine lists under NHIS at hospitals, issues of co-payment among others to curb the teething issues of malpractices in the health delivery value-chain.
Mr. Issahaque Abdul Latif, the Northern Regional Manager for the NHIA, in an exclusive interview, said the authority has also consulted junior and senior staff of the institution across the district level, heads of private and public facilities since November 2021.
“So today’s strategic meeting was to talk to what we term as our members – maybe the outsider would call them our client but we call them our members; people who are registered on the NHIA system and who everyday access healthcare services using the health insurance card. And that is to also take their input to then influence us to see for the next three years how we’re going to deal with their aspirations for the NHIA, the fears they have, the concerns they have, so that we can add it as part of our master-plan and that is the purpose of today’s meeting” he articulated.
Mr. Issahque said all concerns raised including the request for the authority to create clients complaints center at the health facilities have been captured and was optimistic that this would be inculcated into the master plan at the national office.
“We are very grateful for this and we know that – with all that we have received and many more we have received from other place would help to make sure that NHIA becomes very much better and more focused to help people access healthcare services” the manager stated.
Meanwhile, the CUSTODIAN Online has gathered that, the number of credential facilities in the north have increased to about three hundred and seventy from about one hundred and eighty in over three years now.
The Regional Manager said the public shy away from facilities without NHIA credential, adding, more facilities are coming on board because they (subscribers) know when they come, they will pay so much and nobody would want to pay so much when they have a much better systems regardless of the few challenges.
