Health insurance comes to Nigeria through mobile phone subscriptions

Monday, July 28, 2014

Quality healthcare is often out of reach for many living in rural areas, but MTN in Nigeria initiated as program together with Nigeria’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to provide affordable healthcare to its subscribers in the country.

Called MTN Y’ello Health, the mobile service provider created an all-inclusive health insurance scheme that will allow subscribers to gain access to pre-defined treatments as well as selecting their own Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) and healthcare provider – of which there are over 6 000 partners in Nigeria. Subscribers who opt into the program will be able to visit any hospital as much as they like, for only R16 a week.

“At MTN, we believe that health insurance contributes to removing the financial barriers to healthcare, thereby giving people unrestricted access to good healthcare without having to pay out-of-pocket. More than bringing flexibility and ease to paying for health care service, health insurance is also a means of providing greater access to healthcare for larger segments of a population. Indeed we believe health insurance is imperative for closing the gap between the availability of health care service and the ability of the citizenry to access it,” said MTN Nigeria country manager Michael Ikpoki in a press statement.

Source: htxt (link opens in a new window)

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Health Care, Technology
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