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develops 10-year strategic plan to achieve mandate
NHIS Executive Secretary
The National Health Insurance Scheme has launched a “Roche Cost Sharing Initiative” aimed at subsidizing cancer drugs in the country.
The Executive Secretary NHIS, Prof. Mohammed Sambo made this known at a capacity building for broadcast media.
The NHIS, earlier developed a medicine supply initiative designed to address the problem of out of stock of some specific drugs and complaints of substandard drugs by enrollees.
The initiative would have drug manufacturers produce NHIS branded drugs at affordable cost.
To this end, NHIS unveiled its Roche Cost Sharing Initiative in Seven tertiary hospitals to subsidize cancer drugs by 50%.
According to the Executive Secretary, out of the 50% subsidy, the Scheme would pay 30% while the enrollees would pay 20%.
He explained that the initiative was to make health affordable, available and accessible by enrollees.
The hospitals include National Hospital Abuja, UCH Ibadan, UNTH Enugu, FMC Gombe, UBTH Benin, ABU teaching Hospital Zaria, and Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.
Other measures put in place to make health insurance for all is the implementation of the basic health care provision fund.
Prpf. Sambo said over 14billion naira had been disbursed to benefiting states.
Meanwhile, the Scheme says it had developed a ten- year strategic plan 2020 to 2030 to serve as a roadmap for achieving the its mandate.
The Executive Secretary disclosed this at a press conference in Abuja, on Tuesday.
`The scheme has developed a ten-year strategic plan from 2020 to 2230 which serves as a road map for achieving its mandate.
“The implementation of the plan has commenced with efforts aimed at the attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Nigeria, with a clear focus and milestones that could easily and accurately be tracked,” he said.
According to him, the country had been spared of stories of financial breaches in the scheme.
Sambo said that when he resumed office in July 2019, he unfolded a three point rebranding agenda to enable him transformed and reoriented the scheme towards realizing its core mandate.
He said that part of the transformations was in restoring a valve system that would transform the scheme into a credible and result-oriented organization.
Others, he said, were engendering transparency and accountability in the entire operation of the scheme.
Sambo said that in an effort to address lingering issues in the scheme, it recruited relevant medical staff that were grossly in short supply, especially in the state offices.
He said that the scheme also did aggressive and strategic capacity building for staff.
Sambo added that the scheme also now had a strong financial management system.
According to him, the scheme had addressed many identified operational lapses, including delays in payment of health maintenance organization (HMOs), providers and denial of service to enrollees.
He said others lapses addressed were delays in accreditation and re-accreditation of HMOs and HealthCare Partners (HCP) and limited knowledge of enrollees’ rights and obligations.
“We also addressed the delays in issuance of referral codes by HMOs and poor treatment of enrollees by HCPs,” he said.
Sambo said that the scheme went further to develop a comprehensive digital technology infrastructure called the e-NHIS.
He said the infrastructure developed by NigComSat and its partners would automate health insurance business processes in the country.
Sambo said that the scheme also developed and launched a new innovation programme known as the Group Individual and Family Social Health Insurance Programme (GIFSHIP).
“The programme was designed to bring the informal sector into health insurance, individuals, families, groups, associations and many others.
“Nigerians in the diaspora can also contribute to the programme,” he said.
He said that the scheme had established an innovation platform known as Insurance Under One Roof (HIUOR). This platform, he said, would aggregate the efforts of all health insurance stakeholders, leveraging the e-NHIS and a common monitoring and evaluation framework to achieve universal health coverage.
He said that the scheme had disbursed N14.29 billion to benefitting states under the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) and also developed the NHIS medicine supply initiative.
(Source: Radio Nigeria/NAN)
