Seven months later, the new National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Act of 2022, which was signed into law in May, is yet to be operationalised and stakeholders in the health sector are now demanding it. This occurred during the Annual General Meeting and induction ceremony of the Health and Managed Care Association of Nigeria (HMCAN) and the Institute for Healthcare Finance and Management Ltd (IHFM).
With only 5.7 million enrollees since 1999, the year in which the health insurance system was created. It was observed that the new act has the potential to drastically increase the figure if it is optimally operationalised.
Chairman of HMCAN, Dr Leke Oshunniyi, said stakeholders must come together and insist on the new law to increase enrollees and tackle the little problems in the operation of the health insurance system.
He said, “As a body, we have obtained a legal opinion on the new Act. How should the law be interpreted, and what does it portend? The regulators are also unsure of how to interpret it. All hands must be on deck to ensure that we interpret it in a way that is favourable. As operators, we understand it better than other people. In Lagos alone, we are facing 32 million potential enrollees.”
Oshunniyi further stated that the industry has the ability to grow five times more in the future if all hands are on deck to make the law operational. He said, “The NHIA Act was passed on the 19th of May, 2022. Since then, the industry has been rallying to prepare the guidelines which would operationalise this important statute.
“So, this new law, clause by clause, we will look at it and decide on how best we can make it work, otherwise, there will be no consistency. All the component parts will be interpreting the law to suit themselves; it’s better we sit together to prepare these guidelines and, like I said, the leadership of the NHIA has assured us that this will be something that all stakeholders in the industry will be called together.
“We expect that will be anytime from now and we will begin the process of articulating these guidelines.” Oshunniyi concludes.
