Health insurance now compulsory in Nigeria – NHIA
From Aniekan Aniekan, Calabar
The National Health Insurance Authority, (NHIA) formerly known as the National Health Insurance Scheme, (NHIS) says health insurance is now compulsory in Nigeria.
Stanley Effah, State Coordinator of NHIA, made this known during an Enrollee Forum in Calabar.
He admonished Health Maintenance Organisations, (HMOs) and Healthcare Providers (HCPs) to treat NHIA enrollees with dignity because without them, there would be no scheme.
He also called on enrollees in the scheme to be conversant with their rights adding that it was important for them to read the operational guidelines of NHIA to prevent being deceived or cheated by service providers.
“The NHIA Act of 2022 has repealed the NHIS Act of 2004 by making health insurance compulsory and NHIA more a regulatory body to the entire health insurance process in the country.
“Once there are lapses within the stakeholders, that is the HMOs and HCPs it affects the core stakeholders which are the enrollees.
“Formerly, there used to be different health insurance actors and activities without regulations but now being a regulator, NHIA is ensuring that all principal actors within the scheme comply to the regulations that govern the process,” he said.
Also speaking, Orok Edet, National President of Enrollees Association of Health Insurance Scheme of Nigeria, said the journey of ensuring that enrollees get prompt and quality service had been tough because a lot of people are losing faith in the system.
