NHIS outdoors new identity cards

Centre spread, May 1, 2008
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
THE National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) yesterday unveiled a new insurance identity card for its members that will enable them to access health care from districts other than the ones from where they registered.
The new identity card would enable health providers to check and easily access information about the scheme’s card bearers.
Currently, beneficiaries of the scheme are able to use their cards to access health care only in the districts from where they registered, except in cases where districts have special arrangements with other districts.
In addition the NHIA has come out with a logo that would be displayed by all its accredited health providers with their registration numbers to enable them (health providers) to be easily identified by beneficiaries of the scheme.
The Chief Executive Officer of the NHIA, Mr Ras A. Boateng, who launched the new card when he took his turn at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra yesterday, explained that the new card would begin operating on pilot basis in the Tano South District in the Brong Ahafo Region from today (May 1) before being extended to the rest of the region and subsequently to other regions.
While new members of the scheme would be given the new identity cards, old members whose cards expire would be issued with the new cards. It is expected that the scheme would change over from the old card to the new one within one year.
Mr Boateng said the introduction of the ICT solution would also ease the registration and issuance of identity cards and make it a permanent feature of the programme, explaining that 736 clinics and hospitals throughout the country had been equipped with computers with programmes that could check the authenticity of identity cards.
Giving the overview of the operation of the scheme, the NHIA CEO said a total of 11,279,698 representing 55 per cent of the population were currently registered under the 145 District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes (DMHIS) operating in the country.
He said out of the 9,773,100 members of the scheme who were eligible for identity cards, 8,291,666, representing 42 per cent of the country’s population had been issued.
Mr Boateng explained that the introduction of the scheme had assisted in boosting hospital and clinic attendance since 2005.
In 2006, hospital and clinic attendance rose from the 2005 figure of 552,000 to 3,213,450 while in 2007 it increased to 6,835,104. Currently 1135 health providers comprising hospitals/clinics, dental clinics, maternity homes, pharmacies, chemical shops and diagnostic centres had been accredited by the NHIA.
Making comparative analysis of the scheme, Mr Boateng stated that Ghana’s NHIS was one of the few schemes in the world that did not require co-payment (payment of part of hospital bills) for services accessed by members.
He said that was more evident when one considered the fact that 95 per cent of diseases that commonly afflicted Ghanaians were covered by the NHIS benefit package in its short period of existence.
Mr Boateng said comparing the coverage of Ghana’s NHIS to countries such as Australia, France, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Luxemburg and Germany, all of who began their scheme in the 1920s, the 55 per cent coverage in three years was an excellent achievement.
He explained that since it took France, Germany, Australia Luxemburg and DPRK 80 years to achieve total coverage or near total , Ghana’s achievement within only three year is one that Ghanaians should be proud of.
Mr Boateng stated that though NHIS was not perfect “we are focused to implement the system to make it comparable to the best health insurance anywhere in the world”.
Answering questions from journalists after his presentation, the CEO said efforts were being made to decouple the registration of children under 18 years from that of their parents.
On the registration of foreigners under the scheme, Mr Boateng said the law did not restrict the NHIA to register only Ghanaians citizens but all residents in the country.
He explained that what the authority was concerned about was people who were crossing from neighbouring countries to register because the health care in Ghana had become cheaper because of the scheme.
The outgoing Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mrs Oboshie Sai-Cofie, used the occasion to introduce the incoming minister, Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, to the press.
Mr Asamoah-Boateng said the NHIS was one of the major policies of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government and everything possible would be done to make it successful.
He, therefore, urged those who had not registered to do so to get benefits that the scheme offered to Ghanaians.