Poor Understanding, bane of NHIS – Expert

Poor understanding of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) by policy makers and administrators has been identified as the main drawback to the genuine execution of the scheme.

In addition, the activities of most Health Maintenance Orga-nizations (HMOs) in the guise of protecting the interest of health providers have also given a wrong impression on the actual concept of the NHIS.

Making this known recently during the 2009 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) in Port Harcourt, Dr. I. Odo noted that the situation has not only pauperised medical doctors, but has also given the wrong impression that health care is cheap.

In a paper titled, “Managed Care in the Organised Private Sector; the Providers’ Experience”, Dr. Odo said healthcare is not free anywhere in the world.

According to him, by concept, design and projection, the scheme is aimed at harnessing the resources and earnings of  Nigerian people across all strata by a formula of contributing obligation, “each man according to his capacity to provide appropriate, adequate, affordable health care for the people.”

He continued that “the choice of a social health insurance option is to target universal coverage, irrespective of socio-economic status, with the economically strong supporting the weak.

“Health Insurance is intended to make healthcare pricing affordable by the principles of insurance remunerations and not to make it cheap, hence the use of the world ‘cheap’ by operators of the scheme is, therefore, mischievous and calculated to mislead the system, and this is the cornerstone of the crisis in the health sector in Nigeria”, he concluded.

On the part of the HMOs, Dr. Odo hinted that they are merely growing fat at the expense of health providers and the success of the NHIS.

“Many of the HMOs have by their approach to the challenges of this scheme shown a deliberate lack of readiness to make it work.

“These are some of the reasons why the NHIS has failed to reasonably meet its set objectives four years after.

“The fate of the scheme is engaging the attention of those who know, while those who do not know, and those who are benefiting from the confusion are clapping”, he concluded.