‘Health Plan Can Reduce Preventable Deaths’

Many Nigerians are not buying into any health plan as a result of lack of awareness of the benefits they stand to get. The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Avon HMO, Ms Adesimbo Ukiri, in an interview with Rebecca Ejifoma, urged Nigerians

What does it mean to have health plan?

A health plan is a kind of subscription, which some people will describe as health insurance.

Simply put, it is something you subscribe to so that when you need healthcare services, you won’t have to deep your hand into your pocket.

Because sicknesses, medical emergencies do not give warnings. Therefore, a health plan enables you to have assurance that any time any illness comes, you won’t have to pay for it rather the health care subscription will take care of it.

How does it Work? This is a service offered by Health Management Organisations (HMOs). The HMO pulls together people’s resources to create a pool that will take care of the enrollees. We know that everybody cannot be ill at the same time with the same illness, requiring the same level of spending. As people make an annual subscription, it covers the illness anyone of them falls into during the course of the year.

Technically speaking, pure health insurance looks at you as an individual, access your risks and levels you with a premium.

HMOs are different from health insurance, which underwrites risks on an individual basis. A health insurance policy reimburses you for whatever you spend in a hospital.

How affordable is a health plan? It is very affordable. There is a plan that starts from as low as N15, 000 naira yearly (N1,200 monthly). Because we need to make the pool in order to pay for somebody’s bill so it is paid on yearly basis. This covers all primary care as well as minor and intermediate surgeries. Each subscriber gets a primary care physician in a nearby hospital to his or her home.

Who should get a health plan? Everybody who is out of school - the same way you set aside money for your perfume, body cream and others, you should plan for your health.

Married or single - as you plan for house rent, school fees, do likewise for your health. The moment you have done these three, relax.

With a health plan, you don’t need to think of which rela- tive to call for financial help during emergencies. All you need to do is to go straight to the hospital. Even at midnight, you can call on your doctor and you will be attended to.

Why would anyone not want this peace of mind? However, because of what we call ‘adverse selection’, there is a waiting period for surgeries.

You have to be on the plan for one year before you can go for surgery. This is to avoid people registering and immediately going for surgery.

How accessible is you reach? We have hospitals in every town and state across the country. Except for some far away remote villages, where we may not have team hospitals for now. We are everywhere. We have our 24/7 customer centres that are there with a turnaround time of five minutes.

We, at Avon HMO, can cater for every Nigerian no matter his income level or social status. We have international health plans that we do in conjunction with international healthcare centres.

No matter where you are in the world, you can access healthcare service. Even if an emergency happens to any of our subscribes and requires him to be flown abroad, then he will have it.

What is the common reason Nigerians shy away from health plan? Lack of knowledge and awareness are factors. More than 99 per cent of Nigerians do not know the value and the benefits of health plans. Many Nigerians think it is unaffordable.

Meanwhile, there is a certain category of people who know it is affordable but do not want to use their money for it. They believe they can’t fall sick.

Do you know that the life expectancy for Nigerians is 54 years for males and 52 for females? Whoever lives above this is living on a borrowed life. But in other developed countries, life expectancy is above 70 and 80 years respectively.

There are speculations that Nigerians die young often of illnesses. How so?

It is because we don’t take care of our health from young. If you take good care of your health when you are young, you can live to a ripe, old age.