More than 700,000 subscribers of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the Greater Accra Region have been enrolled on the scheme for the first half of this year.
That brings the current active membership of subscribers in the region to more than one million subscribers, representing more than 50 per cent increase over its set target of 1.2 million for the year.
The premium collected for the first half of 2015 also stood at GH¢4 million.
Mr Lawrence Amartey, the Greater Accra Regional Director of the scheme, made this known at a mid-year review meeting in Accra.
The event was used to take stock of activities of the various district offices under the scheme in the region.
The meeting also reviewed the region’s strategies and considered how to exceed its set targets for the year. Membership
Addressing the opening ceremony, Mr Amartey said the scheme would place a lot of emphasis on membership enrolment for the rest of the year.
“For the months of August and September, the region will be collaborating with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to register the poor, vulnerable and the underprivileged in society for free,” he announced.
That, he said, was part of the innovative ways the scheme had adopted to increase its membership, adding that “we will also encourage our subscribers to constantly renew their membership”. Public education
Mr Amartey also stressed the need for the region to intensify public education on the biometric registration system, as well as the regular and constant renewal of membership.
He indicated that some members were usually exploited due to the lack of education and said strict mechanisms had been put in place to thwart the activities of miscreants. “We believe that the introduction of the biometric registration system has helped to reduce fraud in the system,” he added.
Mr Amartey said the region was considering an alternative source of funding in order to reduce the burden on the National Health Insurance Authority.
Going forward, the regional director said the scheme would do its best to increase the subscriber base in the coming years and called for collaboration with stakeholders to achieve that objective.
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