Mr Elliot Akototse, the Volta Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), said the collaboration between the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the Korean Foundation for International Healthcare (KOFIH) was yielding positive results.

“We have started seeing significant rise in the number of new entrants and those who are renewing their membership, especially in the Kadjebi District,” he said at a press conference to welcome the president and officials of KOFIH to the region.

The Foundation and the NHIA are piloting two intervention projects namely “Registration Unit Expansion and Information, and Education and Communication Improvement” in the Kadjebi and Ketu North districts of the Volta Region.

The projects followed a collaborative research by KOFIH and the NHIA on poor enrolment onto the Scheme in 2013.

Mr Akototse said the introduction of ‘door-to-door’ registration and renewal of membership at Kadjebi had made the Scheme popular, especially at difficult to reach communities.

He said at Ketu North, clients appeared to have understood the Scheme better with much interest in activities of the Scheme following the establishment offices in catchment areas to educate potential clients on benefits of the Scheme.

Mr John A. Linton, the President of KOFIH, said with seven overseas offices, Ghana being one of them, their aim was to get the NHIA on track and “in the right direction”.

He recommended that NHIA officials use Health Insurance Review Assessment (HIRA) system, a claim system that ensures value for money, a challenge faced by the Authority.

Mr Francis Xavier Andoh-Adjei, the Director of Research, Policy, Monitoring and Evaluation of NHIA, said the two districts would be compared to know the one with more positive impact with a third district serving as a control to measure the effectiveness of the system.

In October 2015, KOFIH supported the NHIA to augment enrollment on the Scheme towards a universal coverage.

NHIA officials and the KOFIH team are visiting the pilot districts for evaluation to inform the expansion of the project to other districts.