Enforce health insurance, firm urges govt

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Ultimate Health HMO, Lekan Ewenla, has urged the Federal Government to enforce compliance of Nigerians with enrolment on the National Health Insurance Programme.

Ewenla emphasised that adherence with the mandatory enrolment based on the law will translate to astronomical increment in the enrolment figures which will automatically translate to reasonable inflows of financial resources to the healthcare sector and thereby reduce the emigration of healthcare professionals from Nigeria to other parts of the world.

Ewenla further said that the reason why the healthcare sector in the developed world is attractive in terms of remuneration is due to the implementation of mandatory health insurance programmes which translates to huge revenue for the health sector.

In May 2022, the Federal Government enacted the 2022 National Health Insurance Act, marking a pivotal step towards comprehensive healthcare reform. The new legislation makes it mandatory for all Nigerians and legal residents to be enrolled on the health insurance programme to change the narration of the health indices on the national and the global scale.

Speaking in an interview with our correspondent on Thursday, Ewenla stressed the need for stronger support and collaboration between the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance Authority to expedite action on the development and the deployment of an effective compliance framework vis-à-vis robust publicity campaign to drive top-of-mind-awareness for the mandatory aspect of the law.

He said, “Nigerians do not quite understand the benefits inherent in the health insurance program due to low awareness.

“We should not allow the inflationary trend due to the removal of fuel subsidy, and the normalisation of the exchange rates to overshadow the fact that the government is doing a great job. This administration has rolled out quite a number of program to ensure the well-being of Nigerians.

“Another fundamental issue of interest is for the regulatory agency, the NHIA, to expedite action on the ongoing review and recalibration of the fundamental principles of health insurance like the review of the actuarial data, risk management process, systematic redistribution of enrollees for proper health risk management by the accredited healthcare facilities, the review of the operational guidelines and others.”

He recommended that the NHIA should halt the accreditation of more Health Management Organisations to avoid business drain.

“Those that have been accredited should be allowed to grow their business as volume of enrolment is fundamental to HMOs stability and growth.

“ The good news is that we have the population in this country and we must leverage on this unprecedented asset to ensure the wellbeing of the populace,” he added.

He asserted that achieving a reasonable percentage of enrolment on the health insurance programme will translate to reasonable financial inflows for the healthcare providers to pay worthwhile salaries which will halt the Japa syndrome and also generally improve the wellbeing of Nigerians.