Ahead of the official launch of the “Paperless NHIS Membership Renewal Platform” by President Akufo-Addo, the National Health Insurance Authority has been sensitizing Traditional Authorities and community leaders as well as media personnel in the Upper East Region on the new way of renewing NHIS membership.
The new platform is expected to reduce the stress and burden associated with the renewal of NHIS membership, and on Staff of the various Scheme Offices at the Regional and District levels.
It is also expected that, Staff of the National Health Insurance across the Upper East Region will now be able to focus on registering new members and scrutinize claims, to avoid duplication and detect fraudulent claims.
The National Director of Operations at the National Health Insurance Authority, Ben Kusi, announced at one of the sensitization fora that, the Mobile NHIS Membership Renewal platform (Paperless NHIS Membership Renewal) has successfully been piloted in two districts; Asuogyaman and West Mamprusi, since March 2018.
According to him, the Platform is now ready to be implemented and used across the country, hence the launch, to be done by the President of Ghana on December, 19, 2018.
Once the launch is done, member of the National Health Insurance Scheme will be able to renew their Membership through a dedicated short-code *929# on MTN, Vodafone and Airtel-Tigo networks.
“ Healthcare providers in Ghana will now be able to validate NHIS membership digitally via a variety of methods that include a dedicated USSD based authentication service, that is, hosted on *842#, an Android Application, a web portal and via direct integration to their Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) and received an SMS notification as a feedback. This feedback data collected from members is then used by NHIA’s claims management and clinical audit teams to identify genuine claims.” Mr. Kusi explained.
He believes that the platform will help improve on the state of the NHIS, will make claims faster, prevent and some a large extend eradicate “Ghost Names” from the Beneficiary list.
“…without hesitation I must say Ghanaians are always the lucky ones in terms of hi-tech and other devices, because this mobile phone renewals, it’s only few countries that have it and we are amongst those, but mind you that, it is going to reduce leakages that are chronic to cash-based collection systems.” Mr. Kusi assured.
Deputy Director of Cooperate Affairs at the NHIA, Oswald Essuah-Mensah, assured Traditional Authorities and Community leaders and their people that, there are so much to gain from the Mobile Phone NHIS Membership Renewal, aside the reduction in stress and frustrations.
“Members using mobile renewal save on average 12 hours every year in terms of time taken to renew their NHIS membership, and also it will reduce transportation costs and income losses, as a large proportion of NHIS members are employed in the Informal Sector, which sees time as money. Cutting waiting times for NHIS renewal translates directly into reduction in lost income for our members.” Mr. Essuah-Mensah explained.
Source: a1radioonline.com | Moses Apiah | Ghana
