According to the Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority Scheme (KADCHMA), in an effort to give households more financial flexibility, daily/weekly contingent payments are now being offered.
In a meeting with the Executive of Associations of Tricycle Operators (Keke Napep) on Thursday in the conference room for the scheme in Kaduna, Abubakar Hassan, the scheme's director general, said this.
To increase enrollment in the health system, Hassan said the programme was starting a trial study with daily wage people.
He clarified that the program's goal was to make payment flexible so that it could support more extensive coverage.
“We intend to start a pilot project with daily earners who cannot afford to pay once in a year.
“We are making it daily or weekly contributions to ease payment for them,’’ he said.
He said they were starting the pilot project with the tricycle association because they had over 40,000 members in the state.
`The contributory health scheme is a way of contributing funds for the payment of healthcare services by all residents of the state.
“The scheme will cover for health care services rendered to beneficiaries at their selected health care facilities.”
Hassan said that individual premium for health insurance at the agency cost was N10,650 annually while the family premium cost ₦57,000 annually.
“When you break 10,650 into 90 days or 60 days, you will see that you will end up paying N120 in 90 days or N240 which is a reasonable amount a day.’’
In his response, Garba Rabiu, the State Chairman, Tricycle Owners Association, applauded the scheme for health development.
He said due to the nature of their job, many of them were exposed to a lot of dangers as the daily and weekly contribution would enable members to pay with ease.
Rabiu said the poor response to the N10,650 was due to the fact that most of the tricycle riders were not owners of the vehicles but only remit money on daily basis to their owners.
He said some of them were on hire purchase which made it difficult for them to afford.
“With this development of daily and weekly contributions, most of our members will be able to register in order to access the health services.’’
Mohammed Aliyu, Zonal Chairman, Kawo, commended the scheme for the good initiative, adding that it should be sustained and not abandoned.
“This is a good initiative because it will help members pay without difficulties.
“We want them to involve our associations in registering members because presenting their bank accounts individually will not be in order but the association will collect the money and transfer it to the scheme accounts.’’
The leadership made commitment to start as leaders by registering and to sensitise members to the importance of the registration.