The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has recorded a surge in mobile renewal of its membership in the month of November, following the announcement by the Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on the NHIS membership card merger with Ghana card.

Dr Bawumia during the launch of the Government’s digitisation efforts on Monday, November 9, 2020, indicated that both cards can be linked for full access to healthcare.

Available data shows that the cumulative number of mobile renewals from January 2019 to October 2020 stands at 11,762,277 with the number of renewals for the month of November 2020 alone, totaling 805, 268.

The figure represents a 17% increase over that of the preceding month October 2020 which stood at 690,759.

Breakdown of mobile renewals by membership category with a total of 387,671 representing 48.1 %, children under the age of 18 were captured as the membership category with the highest renewals via mobile phone using the shortcode *929# for the month of November 2020.

It followed by persons in the informal sector with 333,983 renewals, aged 70-years and above with 41,967.

SSNIT contributors stood at 36,419 and its Pensioners 5,228.

On a district level

On a district level, the top three highest number of mobile renewals came from Ga (14,790), Techiman (14,152) and Bantama (12,305) respectively.

For regional performances, the Eastern, Central and Western North regions recorded the highest surge in the usage of the mobile renewal service with 39%, 31% and 29% respectively when compared to the figures of the month of October 2020.

NHIS Mobile Renewal Service

The NHIS Mobile Renewal Service is a fast, reliable and seamless digitised innovation designed for NHIS members to renew the validity of their membership via mobile phone.

The Mobile Renewal Service can be accessed by simply dialing *929# on any mobile money enabled mobile phone.

Not only does the service allow members to renew their membership, it provides access to the NHIS medicines list, benefit package and also serves as the sole avenue to link the Ghana card with the NHIS card.

The service offers members the opportunity to provide feedback on their attendance to any NHIA credentialed service providers.