NHIA to go biometric next year; ID cards to be issued instantly

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) would next year introduce a biometric registration and instant issuance of identification cards to subscribers.

Mr Sylvester Mensah, National Director of the NHIA, said the initiative would ensure efficiency and quality healthcare delivery.

He made this known in a speech read on his behalf at the inauguration of a regional administrative complex for the Authority in Sekondi on Friday.

The office complex comprised 11 offices, a board room, a scanning room, a security post and a kitchen.

Mr Mensah entreated the management and staff of the NHIA to work as a team and develop a culture of maintenance.

The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which started in 2004 with about one million subscribers, had increased to more than eight million with more than 85 per cent of the population getting health care services.

The Deputy Western Regional Minister, Mr Alfred Ekow Gyan, said the NHIS is one sure way by which government would ensure equitable and universal access to health care for the citizenry and reduction in the mobility rate.

He noted that the problem of delayed payment of claims to service providers is almost a thing of the past and that clients of the Scheme would not be deprived from receiving quality treatment from service providers.

The NHIS legislation- Act 1962 of 2003 was to enable the vulnerable in the society to access quality healthcare services.

The NHIS had since paid more than GH¢550 million claims to 3,200 service providers across the country.