NHIS Mobile Renewal usage upsurges

The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) members’ practice of the Mobile Renewal Service has seen an improvement in light of the evolving situation with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Available data demonstrates that the cumulative number of mobile renewals from January 2019 to May 2020 stood at 8,099,074.

From June 2019 to May 2020, the ratio of mobile renewals to total renewals gradually increased from 67.4% in June 2019 to 82.3% in April 2020.

As at the end of May 2020, total number of mobile renewals was 445,563, an increase of 19.5% over 372,827 mobile renewals in the month of April 2020.

Children below 18 category recorded the highest number of mobile renewals followed by the informal category, representing members outside the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) bracket.

Except the Upper West Region, all regions recorded increases in mobile renewal enrolment between the months of April and May 2020.

To this end, Executive Management commends the Scheme’s active members and encourages them to continue making good use of the Mobile Renewal Service whilst urging non-active members to get back onto the Scheme in line with Ghana’s objective to attain Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

While COVID-19 continues to spread, it is expected that all NHIS members take action to prevent further transmission, reduce the pandemic’s impact by frequently using the Mobile Renewal Service which serves as a social distancing mechanism.

2019 Renewals

In 2019, a total of 9.1 million renewed their membership out of which more than 5.8 million members representing 70 per cent used the Mobile Renewal platform.

The overall standings indicated that 79.3% of the renewals constituted members who had renewed their membership with the Ashanti region recording the highest number, followed by the Greater Accra and Brong Ahafo regions.  

Ending 2019, the informal sector which constitutes the only fee paying NHIS membership category represented 34.1% of the active members, an increase from 31.5% in the previous year.

Mobile Renewal System

By simply dialing *929# on their mobile phones and paying from their mobile money wallets to stay active, the Mobile Renewal Service offers ease and convenience to members and also gives members the opportunity to provide feedback on their attendance to the NHIA credentialed service providers.

NHIS members who are considered as the extremely poor (Indigents), classified by the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection represented 5.6%, an increase from 3.7% in the previous year.  

New members constituted 20.7% of the active membership with the Greater Accra region recording the highest number followed by the Ashanti and Northern regions.

Active Membership

The NHIS active membership rose from 10.8 million in 2018 to over 12 million in 2019. Ashanti Region recorded the highest active membership of 2.2 million followed by the Greater Accra region with 1.7 million.

The Brong Ahafo region scored third with active membership of 1.5 million and the Eastern was placed fourth with 1.3 million respectively. The Upper West region had the lowest active membership of 0.47 million.

Female category tops NHIS active membership ranking

From January to December 2019, female members continued to dominate active membership of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) with a national outlook of 58.6% against 41.4% males.

As a member-driven organization, Central Region active female membership stood at 59.8% followed by the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions with a tie of 59.1%.Volta Region female active membership recorded 59.0%, Eastern Region 58.5%, Northern Region 58.2%, Brong Ahafo Region 57.8%, Upper East 57.7% and Upper West Region 56.6% respectively.

The Scheme has become more attractive as 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.

This development buttressed the NHIA Chief Executive, Dr. Lydia Dsane-Selby’s saying that the Authority’s major concern is to increase its membership to reposition Ghana in line with the attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).