Okuzu, O, Malaga, R, Okereafor, K et al. (5 more authors) (2022) Role of digital health insurance management systems in scaling health insurance coverage in Low-and Middle-Income Countries: A case study from Nigeria. Frontiers in Digital Health, 4. 1008458. ISSN 2673-253X
Abstract
Background:
Increasing global commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in the past decade has triggered UHC-inspired reforms and investments to expand health service coverage in many Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). UHC aims to ensure that all people can access quality health services, safeguard them from public health risks and impoverishment from out-of-pocket payments for healthcare when household members are sick
Aim:
This paper reviews the role of health insurance as a policy tool to address health financing as a contributory mechanism for accelerating the achievement of UHC in LMICs. We focus on Nigeria’s legal framework for health insurance coverage for its whole population and the role of technology in facilitating enrollment to health insurance schemes.
Methods:
From May to July 2022, we adopted a cross-sectional case study design combining: i) a literature review of the effects of UHC with ii) document analysis of health insurance systems in Nigeria, and iii) secondary analysis of health insurance datasets to understand experiences of deploying MedStrat, a locally-developed digital health insurance management system, and its features that support the administration of health insurance schemes in multiple states of Nigeria. We drew on contemporary technology adoption models to triangulate diverse data analyzed from literature and documents reviews and from health insurance datasets to identify: i) enablers of adoption of digital insurance schemes, ii) the contribution of digital technology to expanding access to health insurance, and iii) further scalability of digital insurance intervention.
Results:
Preliminary findings suggests that digital insurance management systems can help to increase the number of enrollees for insurance especially among poor households. Three contextual enablers of adoption of digital insurance schemes were a favourable policy environment, public-private-partnerships, and sustained stakeholder engagement and training.
Discussion and conclusion:
Key elements for successful scaling of digital health insurance schemes across Nigeria and similar contexts include: i) ease of use, ii) existing digital infrastructure to support electronic insurance systems, and iii) trust manifested via data encryption, maintaining audit trails for all data, and in-built fraud prevention processes. Our findings affirm that digital health technology can play a role in the attainment of UHC.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 Okuzu, Malaga, Okereafor, Amos, Dosunmu, Oyeneyin, Adeoye and Ebenso. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
Keywords: | scale-up, digital technologies, health insurance, universal health coverage, Nigeria |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Medicine (Leeds) > Leeds Institute of Health Sciences (Leeds) > Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 02 Sep 2022 15:37 |
Last Modified: | 17 Aug 2023 09:22 |
Published Version: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdgth... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Frontiers Media |
Identification Number: | 10.3389/fdgth.2022.1008458 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:190509 |