Clearline HMO, A Health Management Organization (HMO), has instituted an equitable and affordable Health Insurance Scheme, targeted at the grass roots to promote equitable and affordable health care. The Retail Health insurance according to him, remains the veritable tool to engender growth for the National Health Insurance Scheme.
This scheme, as disclosed by Managing Director of Clearline HMO, Dr Segun Ogundimu, is focused within the vision of Clearline HMO to provide affordable medicare to Nigerians and a larger dream to facilitate the development of NHIS in the country.
According to Ogundimu, Clearline, which is one of the first registered HMO in the country, has a core competence in pooling funds from individuals, unions, associations and corporate organisations and managing the funds with a sound understanding of medical practice and financial management.
The concept of the Retail Health Insurance Scheme according to Ogundimu, is a deliberate strategy to create massive awareness about the NHIS in order to sensitise Nigerians on affordable health care that does not take all their life earnings.
“The scheme is also designed to make health services available for Nigerians irrespective of their socio-economic background. Nigerians should not wallow in ignorance and poverty, thinking that quality medical attention is not their right, “ he added.
Only three million, out of about 140 million Nigerians have so far enrolled for the scheme since the National Insurance Health Scheme was introduced in the country.
With the government’s failure to vote at least 15 per cent of the country’s annual budget to the health sector, experts believe that health insurance remains the solution to the country’s poor health indices.
The Retail Health Insurance Scheme, a reliable and dependable method of Health care financing in Nigeria was established by Clearline HMO, which has embarked on research in the past five years to determine the level of participation in the NHIS scheme.
The research is also to determine the strategies to adopt in reaching out to the generality of Nigerians about the NHIS scheme.
NHIS would cover all communities by 2015 in order to meet up with the Millennium Development Goals’ target. Many programmes have been designed to cover different segments of the society, the community scheme is one of such programmes designed for those in rural areas and it will only operate within the community level.