Kpando, March 20, GNA-A total of 20,200 people in the Kpando District have been registered under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) representing 27 per cent of the total population of 73,778 subscribers in the District.

Mr. Benjamin Ofori Atsu, District Scheme Manager told the GNA in an interview that the increase in subscription was due to a mass registration and sensitization exercise organized by management in 205 communities across the district from September to December last year as well as registration and photo-taking.

He gave the breakdown of registered members as 2,618 representing the formal sector with 283 pensioners 3,315 being the informal sector, 7922 below 18 category with 386 indigents and aged totaling 3,905. Mr Atsu said the fifteen accredited health facilities in the district started providing healthcare to clients from January 1, 2006 with a total attendance by the end of October as 11,793 and a monthly average of 1,179 while the bills from the various health facilities for the period amounted to a little over 394.9 million cedis with a monthly average of 93.5 million cedis.

He said the Scheme had made arrangements with other schemes in the region to extend the scope of benefits to members outside the district to enable them access health care while subscribers who go beyond the region were given introductory letters to be able to access healthcare services without any payment.

Mr Atsu said an amount of 306.7 million cedis was collected as premium from he informal sector in 2006 as against 56.4 million cedis in 2005 while government gave out 1.2 billion cedis as subsidy for the exempt category, adding that 86.1 million cedis was generated informally from ID card processing fees, registration and renewal as well as facility attendance card.

He said the Scheme intended to adopt the use of subscriber's booklet starting from next year instead of printing ID cards and appealed for vehicles and motor bikes to facilitate the work of staff whose duties invariably takes them out of the office to enable them reach hard to reach communities to increase subscription to 75 per cent by the end of this year.

Madam Lavoe Beauty, Claims Manager said members were periodically educated on disease prevention to minimize hospital attendance, which hampers economic activities of the people. 20-03-07