Sanction Hospitals That Fail To Treat Patients, EFCC Tells NHIS

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has urged the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to ensure that hospitals and other stakeholders who fail to treat patients who have been paid for under the Health Insurance Scheme, are sanctioned.

Stating that the eNHIS has the inherent capacity to curtail fraud within health insurance operations, the Commission advised that the eNHIS system should be integrated with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) database for the purpose of synchronisation to avoid the duplication of data collection efforts.

The Chairman of EFCC, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa, made this known during the presentation of the NHIS Digital Transformation Framework in Abuja, according to a statement by the Deputy General Manager of the Press of the NHIS, Emmanuel Ononokpono. According to the statement, the EFCC boss emphasised the need to ensure security of data and servers for backups in various locations, stressing that security of ICT infrastructure should never be allowed to suffer any kind of breach.

Tracing the trajectory of the establishment of the framework, also known as the eNHIS, Executive Secretary of the NHIS, Prof. Mohammed Sambo stated that the health insurance regulator depended on manual processes and rudimentary technology in the operation of health insurance while critical data was hosted outside the country by a South African firm.

He however stated that collaboration with the Nigerian Communication Satellite (NIGCOMSAT), leveraging Presidential Executive Orders 003 and 005 and Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval, had ensured that the NHIS has become a reality, noting that partnership with NIGCOMSAT had saved huge funds for the government.

He added that the benefits of automation of health insurance operations include but are not limited to connectivity among stakeholders, real-time service provision, and resolution of complaints, data analytics and effective call management system.