An 11-member high-powered delegation from Ethiopia is in Ghana to under study the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). The one-week study tour, which began on Friday 22nd March 2013, is intended to help Ethiopia in its endeavour to set up a similar health financing mechanism, according to leader of the team, Roman Tesfay.

Ms Tesfay stated that “you are the only country we can learn from, we want to learn from you, we want to know how you are dealing with the challenges (that come with it), we honestly want to learn from you.”

She confessed that though Ethiopia is still in its preparatory stages of establishing a national health insurance system, they have been quite overwhelmed by the challenges they have faced so far, “that’s why we have come to Ghana.”

Ghana’s NHIS is widely considered as a success story in Africa and a leading model of healthcare financing in the Developing world and beyond.

Chief Executive of the NHIA, Sylvester A. Mensah welcomed the Ethiopian team and expressed Ghana’s willingness to assist them with the garnered experience to ensure that they avert some of the challenges Ghana faced. “Health insurance generally appears to be a virgin area. There is no best global model. However ours is one of the most innovative and widely accepted models globally,” Mr Mensah stated.

He mentioned that the NHIS has an “innovative and interesting financing mechanism” that includes a 2.5% tax on goods and services (NHIL as a component of VAT).

He added that typical of social intervention policies everywhere in the world, when the scheme expands, the issue of sustainability would become topical. According to him, “when any government moves out of its way to set up a social protection measure of such magnitude, there is always the need to keep an eye on the national purse.”

Director of Administration at the NHIA, Nathaniel Otoo, said the delegation will be taken through Ghana’s NHIS financial model, membership coverage, risk management, accreditation and quality assurance, how to establish a cogent legal framework for their future health insurance needs, provider payment mechanisms, clinical audit and tariff setting. According to him, the role of the health facility regulator and how to target the poor (in order to assist them) are some of the other areas the team would be taken through by directors and officials of the NHIA.

The delegation will visit some NHIS ICT installations and projects, tour the ultramodern claims processing centre, some health insurance schemes and the NHIS Call Centre. They will also pay a courtesy call on the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service.

About 8.6 million of Ghana’s population is covered by the NHIS and in the last few years the scheme has experienced tremendous growth in its membership, infrastructure, and utilization currently stands at 27.4 million.