IHMS rolls out retail healthcare plan

It is sad that many Nigerians cannot afford going to hospitals. They rather patronise quacks and roadside drug vendors. Even in states where healthcare is free for the elderly, pregnant women and children under-five, many complain not having enough money for transport and other logistics.

To address this, the Federal Government introduced the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Health insurance is a social security system that guarantees the provision of needed health services to persons on the payment of token contributions at regular intervals.

However, in a bid to provide quality healthcare to Nigerians from all works of life, a health management organisation (HMO) International Health Management Services (IHMS) has concluded plans to roll out a new retail health plan.

The new retail plan, which is targeted at raising the bar of the health insurance industry in Nigeria, is aimed at providing a value driven benefit at an appreciable premium would ensure that quality providers such as hospitals, and clinics nationwide provide such care to their clients.

Making this known at the unveiling of the retail healthcare plan in Lagos recently, Chidi Ukandu, Chief Operating Officer, IHMS, revealed that the health plan proffers four generic plans ranging from the basic plan, standard plan, standard plus plan and comprehensive plan is targeted at ensuring that all socio economic class benefits from the prepaid scheme.

According to Ukandu “The retail plan gives convenient access to all levels of healthcare from the different levels of care in the management of aliments and medical emergencies which clients under the scheme are bound to enjoy.”

With the issue of ensuring that Nigerians in the remote areas have access to this health plan, he revealed that the health plan has over the years spread across the six geo-political zones and the enrollees’ base has continued to increase across the private, public and tertiary institutions. This is in view of its operating license it got from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in order to provide prepaid health insurance services to Nigerians.

In his words “Adequate provisions are on ground to ensure that these health plans get to the rural areas. This is specifically targeted to individuals who may suffer from unexpected illness who in the long run may find it difficult to pay for the services rendered. Unlike the out-of-pocket payment which Nigerians currently do before accessing healthcare, insurance based healthcare plans (prepaid) is aimed at protecting individuals from impulsive medical expenditure with comprehensive health cover.”

For his part, Wole Olomojobi, Chief Marketing Officer, IHMS explained that facilitating fair financing of healthcare costs through pooling and judicious utilization of financial resources to provide financial risk protections and cost burden sharing for the people was of utmost importance against high cost of healthcare through various prepayment programmes and products prior to falling ill.

Olomojobi added that the adoption of a proactive health management plan approach by IHMS was a well designed progamme to manage any health condition like hypertension, diabetes, among others.

“Our chronic disease management programmes employ the best practice evidence based medical strategies to reduce the impact of these conditions and ensure optimum productivity,” Olomojobi added.

Even as health experts and industry watchers are of the opinion that the coming into operation of the National Health Insurance Scheme will usher in a new era of improved healthcare service delivery in the country, it is believed that the scheme will provide alternative and sustainable funding for the health sector, relocate responsibility for healthcare management from public sector exclusiveness to the community and ultimately the individual.

There is no gain saying that with better funding, the sliding quality of physical infrastructure in the health sector would be addressed and Nigerian would have a greater say in the management of their healthcare.