The partnership, which would take effect from 2020, would also enable users to visit health facilities to access care with the Ghana Card.

The step followed the introduction of a "Mobile Renewal Service," which enables citizens on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to personally renew the scheme on their phones without needing to spend time and join long queues to renew them at District offices.

Prof Yaw Adu-Gyamfi, the Board Chair of the NHIA made this known at an "End of Year NHIA Review Meeting with Staff" organised at the Authority's head office in Accra.

The NHIS, he said, currently has an active membership of 12 million with utilization crossing the 30 million mark for the first time in history and could be attributed to the innovative mobile renewal service.

He said the uptake of the mobile renewal service had been phenomenal with over 5.3 million members renewing at their own convenience, saying, the service had made available rich data that was being analysed to inform the introduction of new policies and measures to guarantee the sustainability of the Scheme.

Prof. Adu-Gyamfi said the migration from manual to electronic claims management by the Authority was steadily making progress and would be ramped up to process and pay claims.

He said the Board inaugurated the Adjudication and Audit Committees to ensure that grievances of their members and stakeholders were dealt with appropriately.

Dr Lydia Dsane-Selby, the Chief Executive of NHIA, said the claims payment had seen improvement as the Authority cleared 2016, 2017, 2018 outstanding debts and paid up to April 2019.

"We are in arrears of about five months and effort are being made to close the payment gap. About 25 per cent of the claims is managed electronically and it's our hope to see massive scale-up in the year 2020," she said.

On the issue of co-payment, the Chief Executive said, it had been a bane to the organisation, but the Authority was poised to fight the canker to delight their members and to achieve the goal on which the social intervention policy stemmed.

Highlighting the Authority's plans for 2020, Dr Dsane-Selby said they would implement new medicines list, carry out costing and implementation of service tariffs, close claims payment gap, and intensify monitoring, clinical and compliance audit.

The Authority used the Review programme to reward its change making staff under categories such as Best Performed Regional Office, won by the Brong Ahafo Regional Office, Best Performed Rural District Offices, won by the Afram Plains and Adaklu District Offices, Best Performed District Revenue Mobilisation and Best Kept District Vehicle.

Mr Emmanuel Quayson, a Potter and an Administrative assistant with the NHIA, was honoured as the "Overall Best Worker 2019" for his commitment and effective team working qualities, while the "Mobile Renewal Service Project Team" were also awarded for believing in the initiative and making it effectively operational.

GNA

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21-12-19

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