NHIF targets informal sector/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 3 – The National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) will by the end of this month roll out yet another comprehensive health scheme, this time targeting the informal sector.
Chief Executive Officer Richard Kerich said on Thursday that they had come up with a strategy to make sure that the estimated 14 million Kenyans in the informal sector also get access to a comprehensive cover.
“We know that some of them are actually very rich but some portion is too poor to an extent that they may not really afford what we may come up with but what we are doing is Pareto analysis (a statistical technique used in decision making) where we want to target 80 percent of them,” he told Capital News in an interview.
Kerich however said this would be done through groups in the sector that would have standardised benefit.
The national health insurer recently rolled out a limitless outpatient and inpatient cover for civil servants, disciplined forces and teachers that covers even chronic diseases.
The CEO said the premiums for the informal sector scheme would range from Sh20 to Sh6,000 because of the variability of earnings in the sector and would be sold by over 2,000 agents countrywide.
“We will be having scratch cards where our members are expected to scratch and trade. You feed in through your mobile phone… you can even register using a mobile if you are not registered. The only thing is that we will get your information and we will forward the same information to your preferred health facility,” he said.
He noted that NHIF awareness level was up to 80 percent in the rural areas. But in urban centres, he said, the awareness was low.
“This is because in rural areas NHIF pays 100 percent in terms of inpatient but when it comes to urban areas where high cost hospitals are, NHIF payments are very minimal that is why awareness levels in urban areas is low,” he said.
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