The National Mobile Health Insurance Programme (NMHIP) is a game changer that will revolutionise the health care industry.
The Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Dr Femi Thomas made this disclosure at the launch of the pilot phase of the mobile health insurance programme in Lagos recently.
Dr. Thomas said that the digitalisation of the health insurance scheme was one of the latest initiatives for easy access to the programmes of NHIS as part of the overall focus of the federal government toward achieving and surpassing the presidential mandate of 30 per cent coverage by 2015 and universal health coverage in the shortest time possible.
He noted that the programme was in collaboration with a cross-section of stakeholders, including Salt & Einstein MTS Ltd as mobile technology aggregator, the mobile network operators, the National Communications Commission (NCC), Health Maintenance Organisations (HMO) and Health care Facilities (HCF).
“The mobile health insurance is a platform for the application of information technology in the operations of the NHIS and it involves automatic online registration including choice of HCFs and HMOs,” he explained.
Also, it was gathered that there were modalities in place to eliminate fraud in the process, by facilitating identification, using telephone numbers, NHIS number or thumb print and others through a central health insurance information exchange board that transmits all related transactions to relevant stakeholders.
In addition, the required equipment, which was said to have been adapted to the local peculiarities of the people, will be distributed free to over 7,000 accredited facilities nationwide when the programme is fully operational.
Dr. Thomas gave the assurance that the programme will leapfrog health insurance coverage, while eliminating the critical delays associated with operations in areas of registration, data collection, referral, subsidy gap funding, monitoring and quality assurance.
He hinted that an important component of this mobile scheme was what he described as ‘the Adoption Tree’, which provides opportunities for high net-worth individuals and leaders to pay for persons such as relations and vulnerable groups.
This model, he said, would set the stage for subsidy gap funding for health insurance in the country.
“This initiative is designed to leverage on the mass penetration of the mobile telecoms operators in the country. The project is starting with the MTN, while negotiations are already advanced with other MNOs to key into the programme,” he stressed.
Furthermore, he called on all stakeholders, as well as the media, to cooperate with the scheme by making all pilot implementation challenges known appropriately to NHIS in order to aid the objective of eliminating errors and strengthening inherent weaknesses, preparatory to the nationwide launch of the programme by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Also speaking at the occasion, the Managing Director of MTN, Mr. Mike Ikpoki said that MTN was constantly looking for opportunities and means by which it could put its signature on relevant innovative products that actually benefit the lives of its customers.
“Health is an area that our organisation is particularly passionate about and we appreciate the opportunity to work with reputable organisations like the NHIS and Salt & Einstein who have come up with this laudable product,” Ikpoki said.
He noted that MTN was extremely proud to be partners with a proactive government agency like the NHIS, toward the development of this unique solution for meeting the needs of Nigerians.
In a goodwill message during the launch, the Chairman of Salts & Einstein MTS Ltd, Mr. Ernest Ndukwe stated that the unveiling of the National Mobile Health Insurance programme was a satisfactory outcome of a long journey of planning, technological development and liaison with various stakeholders.
However, he said that the real test of its success would be when Nigerians in their large numbers start enjoying health care services through the mobile health insurance programme, irrespective of their social class or economic status in the society.