NHIS To Introduce Mobile Health Insurance Programme

The National Health In
surance Scheme (NHIS) says it will introduce the novel concept of Mobile Health Insurance to make registration and access to quality health care easy for Nigerians.
This is contained in a statement by  NHIS Executive Secretary, Dr Femi Thomas, in Abuja on Saturday.
Thomas said the concept for which a Memorandum of Understanding had been signed with an indigenous mobile financial institution would be first of its kind in the world.
He said the initiative was “a game changer’’ in the health sector, adding that with the programme, Nigerians would be able to register for various programmes from their mobile phones.
According to him, this will remove both physical and financial barriers to access at once.
“The programme will simplify opportunities and processes for Nigerians to register, make payment and choose the health care provider of their preference, all at the touch of a button,” he said.
Thomas said that this would qualify an enrollee to access care after a strategic waiting period of 30 days.
He said that enrollees would be able to pay, depending on their convenience, on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis.
“The manual operations and bottlenecks associated with referrals between Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) and Health care Providers (HCPs) will disappear in this arrangement.’’
He said the HMOs would be required to work 24 hours to take care of referral cases arising at any point of the day for the overall wellbeing of  Nigerians.