ASSESSING THE AWARENESS AND AVAILABILITY OF NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEME SERVICES AMONG TERTIARY INSTITUTION STAFF IN NORTHERN STATES, NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper assessed the awareness, availability, utilization, impact and satisfaction of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) services among staff of tertiary institutions in Northern States, Nigeria. Ex post-facto research design was used on a sample size of 764
respondents. To achieve the stated objective, the researchers developed questionnaire as an instrument for data collection. The population of the study comprised of 64,986 academic and non-academic, male and female staff of tertiary institutions in Northern States, Nigeria. The data collected were analyzed using mean scores and standard deviation, and one sample t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The result showed that significant difference existed between one academic institution and the other in their satisfaction on utilization of NHIS services in Northern States. Based on the finding, the study recommended that explicit consideration should be given to the needs for equal distribution of health care services in Northern States tertiary institutions irrespective of the status of the institutions. Government should ensure effective monitoring and evaluation of the scheme to ensure satisfactory service delivery to the clients and the management and authorities of the partner clinics/hospitals should improve and let the workers utilize some services such as radiology and medical imaging diagnostic test.