The region by region Health Insurance Biometric Registration started in the Volta Region on Friday, March 20, with the assurance that the Scheme in Ghana, despite challenges, remained reference point for many other countries.

Dr Nii Anang Adjetey, Director of Corporate Affairs of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), was speaking in Ho on Thursday at a media briefing in connection with the take-off of the Biometric Registration in the region.

He said the surge of officials from other countries to learn from Ghana’s experiences in health insurance was still going on.

Dr Adjetey said unnecessary jamming of NHIS offices during the beginning of the exercise in some other regions, partly reflected the relevance of Scheme in the lives of the people.

Mr Vitus Kaleo-Bioh, the Deputy Director of Management Information System (MIS) of NHIS, took the about 20 journalists through the roadmap of the NHIS Biometric Registration, implementation schedules and the need for the new system.

He said it was an instant card-in-hand after registration and much more verifiable.

Mr Kaleo-Bioh said the ‘Smart Card,’ which is what the Biometric Card is, would have some essential personal medical information logged on it to facilitate treatment.

He said the important information on the cards to be verified at the service delivery points include face and fingers.

Mr Kaleo-Bioh said the old cards would be used side by side the biometric one, stressing that there was no need to rush to change old cards, if they were not nearing expiration.

Mr Selorm Adonu, Head of Communications, said the scheme had procured mobile registration sets and also programmed operations to avoid milling crowds.

He said the NHIS biometric system was technically more robust than others around and would have minimal operational hiccups.

The Volta Region is the seventh region to begin NHIS Biometric Registration.

So far 4.6 million people have had the biometric cards.