Central Region to increase NHIS mobile renewals this year

The Central Regional Directorate of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has targeted 568,000 mobile membership renewals this year.

Last year, the region recorded 456,725 renewals by mobile renewals representing 110 per cent of the targeted 415,632 renewals by its mobile platform.

In all, over six million members of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) across the country had renewed their membership by the mobile renewal system one year after its introduction.

The acting Central Regional Director of the NHIA, Mr Samuel Oppong Nkansah, made these known at the 2019 annual regional review meeting of the authority at Abura Dunkwa in the Abura Asebu-Kwamankese District in the Central Region last Tuesday.

History

In December 2018, the authority rolled out an information technology platform for the renewal of membership online.

He said the mobile renewals had greatly enhanced efficiency, saying the workload and cost of logistics at the district offices had reduced considerably.

Again, he stated that the quantum of activities by accredited health providers had also seen much improvement.

He said the benefits to clients was also that they could renew their membership without hustle and at no extra cost.

Regional performance

He indicated that though the region had not done too well in the national league of regional performance in terms of membership, four districts in the region, including the Awutu Efutu Senya, Oguaaman, Agona and Upper Denkyira, had strongly and continuously been featured in the top 20 performing districts.

Mr Oppong Nkansah said though the scheme had made tremendous improvement in the area of claims payment, there was still work to be done to reduce the excessive delays in reimbursing the health service providers in order not to overburden those facilities with huge debt.

"It is also inevitable that health care providers may compromise on delivering the expected quality healthcare for the fact that the NHIS owe these facilities beyond the acceptable level.