It is an open secret that around 98 percent of Kenyans are a chronic-illness away from poverty as the majority of Kenyans are pushed below the national poverty line due to direct medical bills.
The nature of Kenya’s healthcare system has been blamed with nil improvement over the last half a decade. Only a small percentage of Kenyans have medical insurance, the massive awareness and consumer education by NHIF notwithstanding.
To get a clear understanding of how best one can manage their health care costs, we were privileged to have a sit-down with Mrs. Christine Mwelu, a Medical Manager at Kenindia Assurance and below is her eye-opening opinion on how best to manage one’s healthcare costs.
Understand that your medical insurance card is not a credit card
Majority of medical insurance card holders misuse their cards by viewing them as credit cards. There are simple ailments that in one way or another, only need over the counter drugs or home therapy, but one will shun that idea as ineffective and go to the hospital and end up paying a higher fee than what would have been paid over the counter.
Such dependencies are contributing factors to inflating insurance premiums.
Seeking the second opinion
In the event that one is diagnosed with a particular ailment, it is imperative to get a second opinion from different doctors before eventually beginning your treatment program. This allows one to affirm the first doctor’s opinion and reduces instances of misdiagnosis.
Make good use of the NHIF enhanced benefit
In the recent past the basic NHIF benefits were enhanced to cater for surgical cases, CT Scans, MRI, dialysis and chemotherapy treatment. The attending doctor fills a form and shares to NHIF offices for approval.
These packages are greatly reducing costs since it is cost-shared with your Insurance Company and curbs early depletion of limit(for those with both NHIF and private health covers).
Good choice of a health facility
Most of the Kenyan medical facilities are in business and are out to make good money from your insurance cover. They escalate costs to be settled via Insurance compared to cash payers.
The cost varies from one health facility to another depending on hospital tiers but the attending Doctors are the same who rotate. Do not choose a facility due to its name, choose what you can afford even when you have no insurance.
Consider using generic drugs
Majority of patients consider generic drugs as inferior to the original brand name version.
Both the generic medication and the original version are created to be the same as already existing brand of medicine form of dosage, safety, strength, administration route, quality, performance characteristics and intention of use.
Both generic and original medication work just the same as existing brands but with cheaper price tags.
The use of generic drugs should be highly considered in Kenya to enable lower cost of medication which will reflect on affordable healthcare costs.
Lifestyle change
Poor lifestyle habit changes in the modern day are resulting in chronic lifestyle diseases.
Leading a healthy lifestyle could keep you from regular visits to the Doctor; unfortunately, healthy lifestyles are also becoming unaffordable for the majority of people living in the cities.
Most Kenyans are oblivious of the danger that lurks in physical unfitness and lack of watching what they eat in their diet and the results of their actions are translated in their health which drains their coverage.
Getting health insurance should never be an assurance to lead a care-free life, it is crucial that one strives to ensure their good health by responsibly leading their lives. Your insurance card is not your credit card, avoid unnecessarily using it as there lies the risk of draining it before its time which could mess you in case you experienced a dire need after its all spent up. Have a healthy living and seek to get a health cover for you and your family.