A university don, Professor Jesse Uneke, has Advocated for digital healthcare payment in the country, stating that it would reduce leakages, security risk, and improve financial autonomy to healthcare delivery, among other benefits.
Uneke, who is the Vice Chancellor of David Umahi Federal University of Health Sciences, Uburu, Ebonyi State, and doubles as the founder of African Institute for Health, Policy and Health Systems, made this known while delivering a lecture
The workshop was well attended by stakeholders in the health sector, telecommunication, financial institution, including CBN, members of the academia, among others, who convened to deliberate on the digital payment system agenda in Nigeria.
While delivering a lecture on the topic: `How Digital Healthcare Payments Can Drive Access and Affordability in Nigeria”, Prof Uneke explained that digitizing healthcare payments “have a lot of benefits, because it enables patents’ greater access to healthcare, reducing risks, leakages, paving way for digital installment plans”.
According to him, it makes it easier for patients to pay for medical expenses over time, reducing the upfront costs and driving greater affordability through payments in installments.
He further noted that digitizing healthcare payments in Nigeria will improve financial autonomy, especially for women.
He noted that women who can track, plan, and control how they spend money are more likely to seek health services for themselves and their children, adding that access to digital payment mechanisms can help increase women’s financial control through digital wallets.
On the side of government benefits, Uneke said if scale premium collections are launched in partnership with financial inclusion initiatives, digital solutions can dramatically improve the process for premium collection, increasing the number of enrollees and driving higher government revenues.
He, however, cautioned that the transition to digital payments across the healthcare system will prove challenging and hence, required concerted efforts from stakeholders across the ecosystem, including community leaders, pharmacies, providers, government, private sector, as well as non-governmental organizations.
On key actions to help advance the digital healthcare transition, Prof. Uneke urged the government and indeed Nigerians to invest in general, digital, and financial literacy training.
The workshop was part of the processes for promoting evidence-informed policymaking in Nigeria, which is long being championed by Uneke, his team and other policymakers in Nigeria.
The workshop featured various sessions such as: Introduction to Digital Payment and the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp) framework, Knowledge of Digital Payment, Landscape of Digital payment system in Nigeria, Overview of Study Rationale, Presentation of Initial Findings from Desk Review, Group work among Stakeholders, Co-ideation and Solution synthesis, amongst others.