According to a report on the Proposed Formula for the Disbursement of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) for 2020, the authority was allocated GH¢2.5bn in 2019 as opposed to GH¢2.3bn for this year, representing a 6.4 percent reduction.

CEO for the authority Dr. Lydia Dsane-Selby told lawmakers following the approval of its budget that the cut was down to ICT-related savings, adding they are desirous of making their operations as ICT-based as possible to reap more efficiency gains.

Already, the mobile membership renewal system, which is considered convenient for clients to access certain services of NHIA without visiting any of its offices, has seen its renewal rate increase to 71.2 percent as against the office renewal rate of 28.8 percent.

The NHIA, as part of data integration with other establishments, has integrated its data with the National Identification Authority (NIA) in a pilot phase.

The CEO explained to Parliament that the integration will make it possible for clients to also access the services of NHIA with their national identification cards.

Other institutions such as the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), telecommunication companies and other service providers of the scheme were urged by the legislature to cooperate effectively with NHIA to help improve service delivery to the Ghanaian people.

The report also indicated that the NHIA relied on its Disaster Recovery Site as its main data centre because the actual one was outmoded and had challenges.

However, officials of the authority revealed that an amount of GH¢21m has been allocated to upgrade the main data centre to make it functional.

The NHIA has an active membership coverage of 12 million, which constitutes approximately 40 percent of the estimated population of 30 million for the year.

The authority has set a target of increasing the membership coverage by devising strategies to be implemented in 2020. Membership of the scheme is expected to increase to about 45 percent of the estimated population.

Dr. Lydia Dsane-Selby expects the authority to go full digital in all its operations.