Health Insurance Eliminates Out-of-pocket Medical Expenses That Plunges People Into Poverty- Dr. Korie

          

The National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS has been ongoing in Nigeria, but a lot of Nigerians are yet to sign up with the scheme. Health insurance has helped a lot of people in Nigeria, so much that, it has reduced out-of-pocket medical expenses for enrolees of the scheme. Now, You can pay a little amount per-annum and get full medical care and treatment for yourself and your loved once in any hospital of your choice...yes it's that simple and easy!

 In this detailed interview with Vanguard, the Managing Director, Managed Healthcare Services Ltd., a Health Maintenance Organisation, HMO, Dr. Patrick Korie, describes the Scheme as a poverty alleviation measure.

See Excerpts:

What he said about the attitude of Nigerians to the health scheme

He said that Attitude is affecting the uptake of health insurance, that when the NHIS started, they were begging people to register, they were moving around the Ministries and parastatals begging, but today the attitude has changed. Now they come to HMO offices to register because they have seen it work and seen people benefit from it.

''I had a client whose wife delivered her baby in the same hospital with the wife of a friend whose family is covered by health insurance. The wife of the man with insurance paid 10 percent of the cost of drugs, while the wife of the other person paid over N100,000 for the same drugs. He cried out and wanted to know why the huge difference for the same service in the same hospital.

It is health insurance advantage, he was told. That is what the NHIS has done. So you can see the difference between getting registered, and not being registered. Seeing what insurance can do has created knowledge and people come for it''

About how Poverty affects the need for health insurance

''Poverty of knowledge and money is an issue. At certain income level, when you tell a man who is struggling to put food on the table to set aside certain money for health insurance, he will tell you that he needs to survive first. So poverty is a problem; poverty of the mind. But then, health insurance is actually meant to address poverty because payment of medical care from out-of-pocket medical expenses have plunged so many families into poverty. Disease has plunged people into poverty but health insurance is meant to address this.

Health insurance creates improvised access to medical care. It reduces or eliminates completely out-of-pocket medical expenses that plunges people into poverty. Insurance reduces the waiting time for seeking healthcare. It encourages sick persons to go and seek healthcare rather than stay at home because they don’t have money until the illness gets worse. At the end, they spend more money. Health insurance eliminates all that, but we need to make our people know that poverty that is making people not to pick up health insurance, is making them poorer, because if there’s any illness, that family plunges deeper into poverty. Some end up selling their property. Insurance eliminates that completely''.

What he said about the difference between Health insurance and life insurance

''Before you get a life insurance, you go for medicals but after picking the medicals, your health can change the following day and if it changes there is nothing to sustain it. If you are to operate a life insurance, you have to show evidence of maintenance of your health. The two should go together.

More importantly, when we look at health insurance, there are people who cannot pay. Who pays for them? That’s why it’s for every Nigerian, and it’s not discriminatory, whether you are rich or poor, so long as you are a Nigerian you must have access to basic health care.

It is a good thing that government is thinking of making provision for the less privileged. That is going to be a buffer, something to augment the existing act to ensure that every Nigerian should have access to insurance''.

 

On a Final note

 ''We need to create the awareness. We need to do more, as HMOs. The practitioners of health insurance need to have references so we are calling on those that have enjoyed health insurance to speak up. If you have enjoyed health insurance, speak out.

But if there is no demand there will be no supply. We can break the supply chain, so it is now left for the relevant government agencies to break the supply chain of fake insurance in Nigeria''.

You can call these lines for enrollment to the scheme 08079992837.