The Executive Management of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has embarked on a vigorous publicity for 'Preventive Healthcare', citing how essential it is in the chain of healthcare delivery. 

As part of a grand agenda proposed by the Chief Executive, Dr. Dacosta Aboagye, all residents in Ghana are to benefit from a free annual medical check up at NHIS credentialed facilities preferably on the birthdays of all members of the Scheme.

The Deputy Chief Executive, in charge  of Operations, Mrs. Louisa Atta-Agyemang emphasized the importance of preventive healthcare at the NHIS Central Regional 2024 First Quarter Performance Review Meeting, held in Cape Coast.

"Executive Management's decision to provide basic annual health check up for all Ghanaians will afford everyone the opportunity to go for annual check up to save the scheme long term cost of treatment and also save human lives. "

"People seek medical care only when they are ill, but annual check up under the NHIS will save lots of lives by identifying illnesses on time."

As part of her nationwide outreach activities, Mrs. Louisa Atta-Agyemang was in the Central Region for a two-day working visit. She commended the regional and district management teams as well as the NHIS frontline staff for their hard work during the period under review.

She reminded them to intensify campaigns on the MyNHIS App, the Mobile Renewal Service short code *929# and the linking of the NHIS and Ghana cards to increase the Scheme's active membership, in line with achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by the year 2030.

 Mrs. Atta-Agyemang  raised a red flag on illegal charges (extortions) for services covered by the NHIS and posited that the Authority will leverage on laid down strategies to gradually eliminate this ill practice."New mechanisms will soon be rolled out to clamp down on facilities engaging in this fraudulent act", She said.

The NHIA Central Regional Director, Mr. Fred Appiah  in his opening remarks recalled the low performance ranking of his region and charged staff to develop a renewed hard working spirit to achieve set targets.He also shared the region’s M&E and Research Policy , which was instituted with weekly monitoring assessments of district performance through weekly reports collated by the M&E department.

Mr. Fred Appiah said the School Feeding Program registrations will be intensified through monitoring.The Ag. Director Membership and Regional Operations (MRO), Mr. Oti Frempong underscored the need for the region to improve their performance.He spoke extensively on the illegal charges, highlighting some facilities that have so far been sanctioned.

The Ag. Director of the Management Information Systems (MIS) Directorate, Mr. Daniel Blankson said plans were advanced to upgrade the NHIA's fibre communications.

"For the first half of the year 2024, we have achieved 80 percent in the connectivity process which is far better than the satellite and radio connectivity."

The Ag. Deputy Director of Business Systems with the MIS, Mr. Joe Annor-Darkwah made a presentation on activities involving the MIS' digital resolve towards boosting membership drive.

These include Auto -Renewal and Reminder System, Re-engineering the Biometric Membership System , Social Status endorsement, Credentialing Electronic Payment Platform,Ghana Card at Birth Registration and Biometric Authentication System among others.

 The Ag. Deputy Director of Corporate Affairs, Vida Adutwumwaa Boateng touched on boosting the NHIA corporate image and increasing the Scheme's brand visibility.

She highlighted the usefulness of the Pulpit initiative saying' "Staff will be stationed at various health facilities to assist NHIS members to access healthcare with no financial burden. This initiative is indeed a viable tool to market the Scheme and restore public confidence."

She commended staff for their timely reportage of events within the region and urged the regional office to feature corporate affairs activites in their subsequent performance review meetings.Other members of the delegation included, the Executive Assistant of the Deputy Chief Executive, Edmund Obeng Amaning and Hamdiya Amadu Yakubu of the Corporate Affairs Directorate.

Source: Hamdiya Amadu Yakubu