Being a members-funded statutory scheme, the NHIF must shed the tag of yet another lethargic State bureaucracy and cultivate the image of a responsive, customer-centric organization.
The NHIF has in recent years played a critical part in easing the medical bills burden for poor Kenyans, but the fund still has a lot to do in meeting Kenyans’ service delivery expectations.
Besides long response delays for patients on National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) services that require pre-authorisation, the problem of system downtimes is now becoming far too frequent. The fund, which is set for conversion into a national social insurance fund, must live up to the huge expectations that Kenyans have come to place on it.
It is not acceptable that patients are forced to wait for hours either to get hospital discharge or access treatment simply because computer systems are down. NHIF must invest in redundancies and back-up systems that can guarantee continuity of service in the inevitable events of system outages.
The fund must also build a human face for interaction with patients and its other stakeholders. To suffer a system outage is bad enough, but failure to be transparent and responsive to both patients and media queries whenever such downtimes occur makes it even worse.
Being a members-funded statutory scheme, the NHIF must shed the tag of yet another lethargic State bureaucracy and cultivate the image of a responsive, customer-centric organization.
The fact that the fund has 25 million members largely thanks to its legal status as a compulsory insurer for workers makes it even more important for it to strive for delivery of user-friendly services.
As a key agency charged with delivery of the Health Pillar under the government’s “Big Four” agenda, NHIF will play a critical role in enhancing access to health services for all.
The government could equip all hospitals with the best machinery and doctors but it is the patients’ ability to pay for services that will give them access to medical care.
NHIF must therefore remodel itself as a modern, efficient, technology-driven insurer.
It would help to, for example, benchmark with the UK’s National Health Service which has for decades proven that it is possible to provide affordable health coverage for all citizens.
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