Leadway unfolds health product
IN LINE WITH ITS VISION TARGETED at leading insurance company and nonbanking financial solutions provider in Nigeria, Leadway Assurance is adding...
THE STATE OF HEALTH is one of the most important business for man as it determines individual dexterity, group functionality and national efficiency. This underlies the need to have in place a scheme to guarantee access to health care irrespective of economic, political or sociocultural challenges.
Health insurance is a scheme designed to help everyone; including the high and low earners, afford medical bills especially when the chips go down owing to financial barriers, vulnerability and inequality in health, among other roadblocks to attaining good medical health care.
As a financial tool that helps individuals to live in good health by financially supporting buyers at the time of medical exigency, health insurance is a lot beneficial as it takes care of the cost of treating sickness and related hospitalization in case of severe diseases and ailments at reputed healthcare facilities.
With the aid of government, insurance regulators and private players, recent times have been very significant in terms of the increased penetration of health coverage championed by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Nigeria.
Recently, NHIS launched the Groups, Individuals and Family Social Health Insurance Programme (GIFSHIP) in Auchi, Edo State. This came following the national launch of the scheme by Osagie Ehanire, the minister of health, in Abuja, last year.
GIFSHIP, which is directed towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) within a set timeline through its various service platforms has become the major driver of enrollment especially in the non-formal sector of the economy as it aims to enroll no fewer than 20 million Nigerians for health insurance annually for the next 10 years.
Mohammed Sambo, a professor and executive secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), in his address at the occasion stated that GIFSHIP was redesigned to extend healthcare coverage to various organisations, political office holders, donor agencies, multinational corporations, philanthropists as well as Nigerians in the diaspora to ensure that every Nigerian has access to quality and affordable healthcare.
He asserted that Auchi was the first location outside Abuja where the launching of the programme would take place while also noting that the event was made possible through the support of prominent citizens of the town.
Representing the NHIS boss, Emmanuel Ononokpono, the head of media and public relation, stated that the mandate of the scheme was to ensure financial access to quality health services for all Nigerians through social health insurance.
Mustapha Lecky, a former executive secretary of NHIS, while speaking at the occasion said the programme would pave the way to better health amongst citizens. “GIFSHIP would provide a pathway to accelerated achievement of Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria as it represents a bold and decisive strategy that is sensible for everyone, to get health insurance cover that leaves no one behind,” he said.
With more people and businesses transcending online, many have wondered if the same could be said of health in relation to the insurance industry especially considering the fact that the technicality involved in health requires most health practitioners to be in physical contact with patients.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that with telemedicine, telehealth, and telecare, medical professionals can diagnose and treat patients in a remote location through the use of technology (computers, video, phone, messaging).
As an effort to join the rest of the world in providing quality and affordable health care to citizens, NHIS recently announced that it will soon launch an electronic platform to further enhance health care in Nigeria.
Sambo disclosed this during the NHIS-Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) Standing Committee meeting in Abuja. According to him, the scheme which will in a short time commence its electronic platform, E-NHIS, will manage the history of patients and give instant access to required information.
He also stated that the platform will enable the transactions of registration, enrollment and change of facilities amongst other business processes to be performed on electronic devices. He added that these actions will be seen in real-time on the scheme’s tracking monitor.
The executive secretary added that with E-NHIS, enrollees will have the privilege of selecting their HMOs, which is a departure from the present system whereby organisations retained the right to choose HMOs for enrollees, especially under the public sector programme of the scheme.
Meanwhile, insurance companies in recent times have gone into the space to provide clients with health insurance benefits. For instance, Leadway Assurance recently launched its health scheme to help cover up the gap in the health insurance policy space occasioned by the mode of reimbursement to hospitals, difficulty in accessing care at hospital and poor investment in technology.
The insurance provider noted that the gap in the Nigerian healthcare system necessitated the birth of the product.
Explaining further, Leadway’s Oluwatoyin Agunmoyole noted that in spite of relatively vast financial and human resources at Leadway’s disposal, it took the underwriter a long time to venture into the health business because the firm took time to make investigations so as not to make the mistake of just opening a new revenue line rather than solving problems.