The Chairman, Lagos State Chapter of Association of the General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria, Dr. Jimmy Arigbabuwo, has urged health management organisations to have strong moral principles.

A transparent relationship between care providers and management organisations in the sector, Arigbagbuwo said, would help to increase the country’s performance in the health insurance scheme.

He stated this at a briefing in Lagos.

According to him, increased advocacy and social marketing is the key to wooing more Nigerians, especially those in the private and informal sectors to enrolling under the NHIS.

Arigbagbuwo said, “The lack of right information and sharp practices by some HMOs have created wrong perception about health insurance in the country such that enrollees are not confident that they will get services if they do not pay with cash.”

He added that the reduction in cost and burden of medical expenses was the leeway to improving the nation’s health indices.

“Our poor health indices stand the potential of recording better scoring once we aspire to embrace health insurance. It is not fair that a user of health care facility moves from his/her place to another several kilometers of the nearest primary health centre or general hospital because of the inability to afford cost of treatment in a private hospital.

“Health insurance will address this challenge and put a final stop as prepaid capitation and subscription makes every health care facility, public or private, available and accessible for use by all and sundry irrespective of their social status, creed, religious, political or economic standing.”

An executive member of the Lagos AGPMPN, Dr. Austin Aipo, also lamented that health insurance coverage in the country was less than 10 per cent.

He stated that there could be improvement on the statistics if state governments pulled their resources.

Aipo also noted that a better implementation of the insurance scheme would help the government in planning health budgetary allocations.