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The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Chief Executive, Dr. Okoe Boye left for Nigeria on Tuesday, September 6th, 2022, to participate in a two-day meeting, where he touched on leveraging technology to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), the new NHIA.
 
Dr. Okoe Boye gave an overview of the NHIS and explained that it was compulsory for all residents in Ghana to enroll onto the Scheme.
 
“Ghana was the first Sub-Saharan African country to introduce the NHIS in 2003 through an Act of Parliament (ACT 650) and full implementation started in 2004. Under the NHIS amended Act 852 (2012), every Ghanaian is required to enroll onto the Scheme.”

 
He said the NHIS had recorded over 16 million active membership likely to hit the 80 percent threshold of UHC before the year 2030.
 
He posited that the government was far advanced with the digitalization agenda of delivering accessible and satisfactory health care systems.
 
In collaboration with the National Identification Authority (NIA), he inferred that it was possible to use one card to access health care services and therefore entreated Ghanaians to merge their NHIS and Ghana cards.
 
According to the NHIA Boss, electronic claims management had jumped to 60 and pledged a 100 percent uptake by the end of the year 2023.
 
He further elaborated on the inclusion of the four main childhood cancer diseases in the NHIS Benefit Package as well as the upward adjustment of the medicine tariffs by 30 percent.
 
He reiterated management's determination to help sustain licensed private health insurance companies whom he described as indispensable partners in the health sector.
 
He recalled how the NHIS was conceived by former President John Agyekum Kufuor who then in opposition as Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) promised to abolish the “Cash and Carry system” of health delivery in Ghana.
 
Dr. Okoe Boye embarked on the journey with the Director of Private Health Insurance Schemes (PHIS) Directorate, Mr. Hudu Issah.