A thirteen-member delegation from Tanzania is in Accra to understudy Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme.
The team made up of Members of Parliament, Principal staff from the Ministry of Health and National Health Insurance of Tanzania are to familiarize themselves with Ghana’s healthcare financing strategy and progress made in the expansion of claims payment.
The visit is also to study the implementation of health insurance as a means toward achieving Universal Health Coverage.
This is the third time the Tanzanian delegation is visiting the NHIA. The visit became necessary due to its potential to increase support for the adoption of the proposed health financing reforms in the current Tanzania Health Financing Strategy.
The Management of the National Health Insurance Authority led by Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Samuel Annor expressed profound gratitude to the Tanzania delegation for choosing Ghana’s NHIS for study.
He assured of the Authority’s commitment to ensure the success of their study tour.
The Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Operations at the NHIA, Dr. Lydia Baaba-Selby, briefed the team on the Administrative and Managerial Structures of the scheme.
She said the Authority is willing to welcome other countries especially those within the sub regions, with the expectation that as the scheme shares its experiences with others they will not repeat the mistakes of the Ghana model.
The Chairperson of the Tanzania Health Insurance Fund, Anne Makinda expressed appreciation for the warm reception by Ghana health authorities.
She said the team has equipped themselves with some good lessons to help improve the health insurance operations in Tanzania.
The team visited the Ayawaso District office to understand the process of acquiring a new health insurance card.
They later visited the 37 Military Hospital to monitor how a subscriber accesses healthcare using NHIS card and finally to the Claims Processing Center (CPC) at Dzorwulu where they were taken through the systems and management of the claims processing and payment.
By Felix cofie
