Mobile renewal of NHIS increases by 80 percent

Bernard Brown, Greater Accra Regional Director of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has said that there has been 80 percent increase in mobile renewal cases in the NHIS as at March 31, 2020.

“Mobile renewal has decreased crowded offices, long queue due to this innovation, making it easier to observe the social distancing,” he said.

He made these known during the first quarter performance review of the Scheme in its 16 districts in the Greater Accra Region.

Mr Brown said though the outbreak of the pandemic has affected its performance, the mobile renewal system has made up for its loss.

All the offices, except those of the Dangbe East (Ada) and Dangbe West (Dodowa) were not closed during the shut-down due to the disease.

The Regional Director, comparing the performance of 2019 and 2020 of the same period, said there has been a marginal increase of 5,000 active members (those whose cards can access health care) and the number is still counting.

When the offices re-opened they attended to the vulnerable including pregnant women and children under five, adding that it was done in phases.

He urged the district officers to scale-up to achieve the two million set target for 2020 as they get every Ghanaian on board by not limiting the registrations to the offices but reach out to the people in their various communities.

Ensure that the protocols were strictly adhered to, get yourselves prepared if there are any community engagements, while making sure the preventive protocols were followed. He said Management would address the inconsistency in the supply of ID cards among other challenges that stood in the way of making people have access to health care through the scheme.

Mr Elliot Apraku Asante, Operations Manager for the Scheme, said the national target for the year under review is 14,177,004 and that of Accra is 2,022,306.

He said the region recorded a decline in performance of 90 percent in the last quarter of 2019, stating that Ashanti Region achieved the highest membership target of 91.41 whilst Greater Accra was tenth on the table with 83.26 percent as Oti Region recorded the least with 59.93 percent.

He said the best district in Accra was Adenta and worse was Ablekuma, saying some districts; Ayawaso, Dangbe East and Weija performed below average.

Source: GNA