HMO CALLS FOR REVIEW OF NHIS

A Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO), Ultimate Health Management Services, has called on the Federal Government to review the law establishing the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) “in order to make it compulsory for all citizens.”

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Organisation, Dr Lekan Ewenla, made the call in an interview with the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

Ewenla said that health insurance should be part of government’s system to ensure that the general populace accessed health by achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

According to him, health insurance programmes should be part of the requirements to get individuals opportunity into any stage in national life.

He said “there is need for the law establishing NHIS to be reviewed to make health insurance compulsory.

“In any clan where you see health insurance or policy working, the compliance and enforcement apparatus are regularly reviewed, enhanced and enforced.

“Once it becomes part of the requirements to get enrolled as a student in school, to acquire a stall as a trader in a shopping mall, or as a trader in the market, you see that everybody will comply.”

He, however, added that it was crucial for NHIS to focus more on its regulatory responsibility which ensured that HMOs complied with healthcare delivery protocols to enrollees.

He added that the regulatory function of the scheme would engender enforcement and compliance among the citizenry as well.

According to him, there is the lack of coordination in the scheme in spite of the consideration by the Federal Government to capture the informal sector into health insurance programmes.

He said that the government needed to engage the various groups that made up the informal sector and majority of the populace for compliance.

Ewenla noted that “right now, government at the federal level is seriously considering the need to capture the informal sector into the formal sector because majority of Nigerians are in that bracket.

“And most people in that bracket are not paying tax to government and majority of them are not partaking in things that will enhance the development of the country.

“The only way we can expand health insurance in the country is when we have a means of capturing the informal sector that are the largest in terms of population.”

Established in 2005, the NHIS was originally targeted at civil servants and workers in the private sector but efforts were being made to include all Nigerians.

Source:Leadership newspapers

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