Dr Bawumia launches NHIS mobile app
The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has launched a new comprehensive online self-enrolment mobile application for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
Known as the ‘MyNHIS app’, it will enable people to self-enrol onto the scheme from the comfort of their homes, instead of visiting NHIS offices.
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Additionally, it will enable subscribers to renew their membership and that of third parties, access frequently asked questions (FAQs), aid in the location of all NHIS offices and also link NHIS cards to their Ghana cards.
Embedded with member authentication features, the new NHIS mobile app will operate on both Android and iOS smart phones and allow
subscribers to securely pay registration and membership renewal fees from their mobile money wallets, bank and Visa cards.
Launch
Dr Bawumia, who launched the app in Tamale, the Northern Regional capital, as part of the NHIS Active Month celebration, said the device would also help reduce spurious claims, such as impersonation and claims manufacturing (collusion between NHIS clients and healthcare providers).
That, he said, would go a long way to accelerate progress towards the quest by the government to achieve universal health coverage by 2030.
Reforms
The Vice-President said since 2017, the NHIS had undergone some major reforms, including the introduction of innovative technologies to help reposition it to provide quality services for the public.
“On November 9, 2019, I personally launched the NHIS-Ghana Card linkage at the Accra International Conference Centre, and today, over five million members of the scheme have been linked to their Ghana cards that have enabled them to access health care since May 1, 2020,” he added.
He said when all members of the scheme were linked to the Ghana Card, the NHIS card would be phased out for the former to become the sole card for accessing healthcare services at credentialed healthcare facilities.
Aside from that, he said, the government was also embarking on a project, together with the National Identification Authority (NIA), the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), the Ghana Health Service and the Births and Deaths Registry, to link births and deaths data to the NIA database to give unique identification numbers to all newborn babies, starting first quarter of next year.
While commending the NHIA for introducing the app, the Vice-President charged the authority to introduce more digital innovations for improved outcomes.
Active month celebration
For his part, the Chief Executive Officer of the NHIA, Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, said December had been dedicated as NHIS Active Month to enable management and stakeholders to reflect on the successes and challenges of the scheme and fashion out sustainable solutions for improved performance.
He said the authority was currently pursuing a five-point turn-around strategy dubbed 5Ds to revamp the operations of the NHIS through digitalisation, development, dissemination, data and decentralisation.
“Digitalisation has played a major role in positively impacting on the operationalisation of the scheme and the numbers enrolled on to the NHIS database.
“Currently, the scheme covers over 70 per cent of the population, with about 54 per cent as active members,” Dr Okoe-Boye said.
He said in spite of the challenges facing the scheme, “the NHIA pays an average of GH¢100m monthly in claims to health providers across the country”.
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