NHIS-Ghana Card Integration Will Achieve Universal Health Coverage

Health News for Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Source: GNA

2020-11-11

The integration of the Ghana card and the National Health Insurance Plan (NHIS) card will drive the country’s efforts to achieve the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) agenda, Kasimu Abudulai, Authority’s Upper East Acting Regional Director National Health Insurance (NHIA) has said.

A few days ago, Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia announced that the processes to integrate the two cards were completed and that Ghanaians could use the Ghana Card to access NHIS services.

Abudulai, who is also the Regional Operations Manager, NHIA, said that the connection of the Ghana Card and the NHIS card together with the mobile money renewal system would ensure that the stress associated with queues to acquire and renew NHIS cards would be reduced. drastically.

“The problem of having to queue for the Ghana card and NHIS card is out of the question and due to the mobile money renewal system, you can renew your card without going to the office.”

“Also, there is a cost associated with the health insurance card, if you lose the NHIS card, do you have to pay GH? 8.00 to get a new card, but once the NHIS card is linked to the Ghana card, once your NHIS card is missing, you will not have to go to pay to get a new one, you can use the Ghana Card to access services health, ”said Mr. Abudulai.

The Acting Regional Director made this known to the media in Bolgatanga during the celebration of the NHIS annual week.

The celebration was characterized by a float through the main streets of Bolgatanga and public education to encourage people to enroll in the NHIS to access health services at affordable prices.

The Acting Regional Director noted that around 23.1 million people had subscribed to the NHIS, yet only around 11 million were active and attributed the cause in large part to the stress of going to offices to renew cards and cost associated with replacing a lost card.

This, he claimed, the integration of the Ghana Card and the NHIS card would ensure that many people who had lost their cards could still access health services using the Ghana card to achieve the Universal Health Value and Sustainable Development Goals. Nations, in particular goal three, which emphasizes equal and quality health care for all by 2030.

The operations manager stressed the need for people to enroll in the plan, link their cards to the Ghana card and use the mobile money renewal system by dialing * 929 # for affordable and easy access to healthcare.

As part of the week-long celebration, indicated the Regional Operations Manager, the NHIS was doing an instant activation promotion after registration or renewal without penalty for potential or delinquent subscribers who can enroll in the scheme as of Monday 9 November. at 2 p.m.

He said: “The celebration is simply to raise awareness and allow people to take advantage of the privileges that come with the week. The main privilege is that within this week, when you sign up, your card is instantly activated, you don’t have to wait a period of a month as usual.

“Under normal circumstances, when your card expires more than three months and you renew it, you have to wait a month for your card to be activated, but within this week, if even your card expires about a year ago, you can still renew and it will be activated. instantly “.

The acting regional director explained that the NHIA was aiming for around 4 million people across the country to sign up for the plan within the week to increase the number in the country to 15 million and that the Upper East region was targeting 184,000 people and their team has identified the main communities to intensify education.