The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is set to launch a mobile application in December, this year, to further enhance clients’ access to its operations.
Christened “MYNHISApp”, the new mobile application would allow clients and prospective clients to register and get rolled onto the scheme with their Ghana cards from the comfort of their homes.
The app would generate a digital NHIS card for the client, which can be used for healthcare just like the physical biometric cards, and the app would also allow for renewal of membership for users and third parties as well as linking the Ghana Card to the NHIS card for users and third parties.
This was made known by the Acting Director of Corporate Affairs at the NHIA, Mr Oswald Essuah-Mensah, at Wa on Wednesday at a meeting to formally introduce the App to staff of the Authority in the Upper West Region, and also train them on the use of the app.
He stated that the Authority was working in line with the country’s vision to attain universal health coverage, and had therefore introduced the mobile application to enhance access and allow members a platform to directly interact with the Authority without necessarily going to the office to endure long queues.
The director explained that universal healthcare was hinged on access and in line with the sustainable development goals on health, hence each country was expected to attain 80 per cent of health insurance coverage by 2030.
“Ghana currently has 16.7 million active members on the NHIS and that represents 54 per cent of the population, so in order to open up the scheme and ensure the removal of barriers in getting people onto the NHIS, this mobile application has been introduced so we want to encourage every Ghanaian to make use of the app because it is free and very easy to navigate”, he said.
Mr Essuah-Mensah mentioned that the NHIA had employed a model dubbed the “Five D’s at 2T”, which he explained as data driven, digitisation of operations, development of human capital and infrastructure, dissemination of information and decentralisation of the operations of the Authority at the regional, district and individual levels to allow quick decision making.
“And we hope to achieve all of this by next year when we will be celebrating our 20th anniversary as an Authority, but let me quickly add that this mobile application would not replace the *929# USSD code; they will both run concurrently to provide our clients with alternatives”, he said.
Taking the staff through the app, a business systems manager at the NHIA, Mr Orison Afflu, mentioned that the app would be available on the Android Play store after its launch in December for people to download and use.
He mentioned that the logo of the app was distinguished from others, having its unique background designed with colours of the Ghana flag as well as the NHIS logo.
FROM LYDIA DARLINGTON FORDJOUR, WA
