Mobile health insurance failing over charges, red tape

Heavy administrative charges and bureaucracy among identity managers have slowed the spread of the National Mobile Health Insurance Programme since it was launched in 2014, acting Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Femi Akingbade, has said. Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, Akingbade who was appointed acting executive secretary of the organization in  April […]

Heavy administrative charges and bureaucracy among identity managers have slowed the spread of the National Mobile Health Insurance Programme since it was launched in 2014, acting Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Femi Akingbade, has said.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, Akingbade who was appointed acting executive secretary of the organization in  April this year said NHIS had “not been optimally providing” the mobile health insurance payments, adding that  fees coming to them from agreed distribution of funds were being sucked by administrative charges on mobile network operators.
“One of the things that is happening is that we are having delivery failure because the stakeholders seem not to totally agree with the payments and fees that are coming to them based on the agreed distribution of the funds that are being contributed,” Akingbade said,
The mobile health insurance would require NHIS to tap into teledensity of nearly 120 million Nigerians registered on mobile networks as well link phone numbers to existing data already captured by operators during SIM card registration.
“We need to collaborate with the Nigerian Communication Commission, National Identity Management Corporation, Mobile Network Operators, and lots of other agencies that are into identity management and that actually slowed the process which we are actually working on,” said Akingbade.
NHIS access to the database would preclude it capturing fresh biometrics for any new enrolee of the mobile health insurance.
“One of the things that we are still trying to work on and implore NCC to do is to release that data base for us for access to those data as it saves us a lot in recreating the wheel.
“They have already done a biometric registration and they have the details of the people that own these phones. What we are now saying is that if somebody that owns a phone wants to register for NMHIP, please give me the data so that I don’t need to go ahead to start capturing a new biometric data,” explained Akingbade.
NHIS has promised to directly reimburse those already registered for mobile health insurance when they visit hospitals. Some 20 Lagos hospitals were chosen to pilot the reimbursement of mobile health insurance carriers whose health cover is tangled in disagreements among network operators and identity managers.
“But I’m sure that with time, we are going to do a national launch and all accredited facilities under the NHIS would be able to render service in the nearest future,” Akingbade said.