Medical Practitioners Call for Sustainable Business Practice
Not comfortable with the huge amount of money being spent on medical tourism, experts have urged medical practitioners to embark on innovative customer-centric approach and business structuring to deliver world-class health care services in the country.
Medical practitioners in Nigeria bared their minds on the development at the 2017 THT Providers’ forum held recently. This year’s forum with the theme: “The Future of Health Care” was organized by leading health maintenance organizations (HMO), Total Health Trust (THT).
Olamide Okulaja, from Health Initiative Africa, Vestment Climate (International Finance Corporation) pointed out that medicine should be seen as a business and not just a social service. He, therefore, urged medical practitioners to position themselves properly to be able to tap into the opportunities in the sector by keeping their financial records properly, adopting workable management styles and adopting best business practices.
He stated that practitioners who operate in the HMO space compete for just 20 per cent of health care spent in the country, as against the large numbers of Nigerians that still pay their medical bills from their pocket without engaging the services of HMOs.
L- R – Mr. Nick Zaranyika, CEO, Total Health Trust Limited; Dr. Rahila Ilegbodu, GM, Medical Services and Provider Management, Total Health Trust Limited; Dr. Olamide Okulaja, Health Financing Specialist, IFC; Dr. Adeola Majiyagbe, GM, Business Development and Stakeholder Management, Total Health Trust Limited at the Total Health Trust Limited’s 2017 Provider Forum held in Lagos.
To make more Nigerians adopt HMOs, Dr. Temitope Ojo, MD Afrimed Specialist Hospital, said that all hands must be on desk, both the private sector and the government, to develop the sector by creating awareness and flexible initiatives that would make the health sector second to none in Africa and the world.
Dr. Ijeoma Iwuala, MD Havana Specialist Hospital, in her contribution, said that technology would shape the future of the health sector and the HMOs companies, and therefore, urged practitioners to key into new technologies that would ease patients’ experience right from the point of entering the hospital to the exist.
Speaking on the benefit of engaging an HMO, Dr. Ngozi Onyia, MD, Paelon Memorial Clinic, said that engaging the services of HMOs helps practitioners avoid worrying about who wants to pay and that makes them offer their best on time.
Commenting on the increasing delay in payment benefits to partner hospitals by some HMOs, Dr. Blessing Chukwukelu, Eko Hospital Head of Manage Care, urged practitioners to report erring HMOs to National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
The participants at the forum commended THT for organizing the yearly event, which has helped changed the medical landscape in the country, and as well commended the leading HMOs companies (THT) for making payments to partner hospitals promptly and respecting the terms and conditions of business agreement.
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