The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) will roll out a Visitor Health Insurance Scheme (VHIS), effective July 1, 2024.
It will require non-residents on a visit to Ghana to sign onto a health insurance scheme which will cover them during the period of stay in the country.
The policy is in line with section 2(b) of the National Health Insurance Act, 2012 (852).
Members of a technical working committee set up to deliberate on modalities of the policy made this known at a media engagement in Accra.
Dr. Isaac Charles Noble Morrison, a member of the NHIA Board, said there had been stakeholder engagement on the policy which would be implemented in phases.
He said the technical working group included the Ministry of the Interior, Ghana Immigration Service, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Transport, Tour Operators, and ‘anybody who has something to do with visitors coming into the country’.
He said the policy was backed by the Ministry of Health, and that the technical committees had also engage
d various Ghanaian consular missions abroad who made input towards the implementation of the policy.
‘…It is all about health, in case you [a visitor] bought an insurance policy and had any medical condition, which is not a chronic medical condition, you will be covered,’ he stated.
Dr Inua Yusuf, Head of Legal, Ministry of Health, said the policy would be applied based on ‘what the [Ghana] law defines as non-resident’.
Non-residents, he explained, were persons living in the country for a period less than six months and a total period of 12 months.
He said the Authority was considering six different layers of the policy, and that details of each of the service packages would be communicated.
‘It has taken us several years to implement this project so we want to start gradually. We are tying the (VHIS) to visa issuance, and we are working closely with the Immigration Service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…We are starting with people coming into the country with a foreign passport,’ he stated.
Dr Yus
uf ad a National Non-Resident Visa Insurance Technology platform, designed through a private-public partnership, would enable visitors to register and buy the insurance policy from healthcare service providers in the country, adding that there would be terms and conditions for subscribers of the VHIS.
Source: Ghana News Agency