Ajobiewe JO¹, Adati Wasinda Kefas³, Ajobiewe HF², Akinloye Oyetunde⁷, Patrick Pillah¹, Victoria Pillah⁴, Alau Kenneth⁵, Aisha Salami⁶, Yashim AN⁷

¹Veritas University Nasarawa State Nigeria, Nigeria
²Binham University Karu Nasarawa State of Nigeria
³National Open University Dutze Study Center Abuja
⁴Nigerian National University Commission ' NUC'
⁵Health System Consults Limited ( HSCL) Abuja
⁶United State Department of Defense, Walter Reed Program Nigeria US Embassy Nigeria
⁷Baze University Abuja Nigeria

*Corresponding Author: Ajobiewe JO, Veritas University, Bwari Abuja, Nigeria.

Received: March 03, 2023; Published: January 26, 2024

Abstract

A crucial element of universal healthcare is health insurance, which offers financial protection against the expenses of utilizing medical services. Nigeria is one of several African nations where a sizable amount of current health spending is made up of out-of-pocket expenses. The percentage of out-of-pocket spending has remained steady over the past 20 years. The Federal Medical Center (FMC) Jabi in Abuja is where the investigation was conducted. FMC Jabi institution is situated in Nigeria's northern central region. Clients who visited the research facility were given questionnaires by the interviewer. The poll included 500 customers, including men and women between the ages of 25 and 60. The vast majority of them (78%) were above the age of 30. There were 200 men and 300 women present, accounting for 40% of the total. The male: female ratio was 1:1.5, 109 (21.8%) and 17 (3.4%) people were single or divorced despite the fact that 339 (67.8%) of the participants were married. A total of 317 (63.4%) participants, or 100 (20%) and 83 (16.6%), are not public officials or employees of the government. More than half of the participants had monthly incomes below the minimum wage. Household heads are working part-time or being unemployed more frequently these days. In contrast to the WHO requirement of 40% or less, which implies catastrophic household health spending, the mean values of patients who could afford to enroll in the NHIS, undergo extensive medical diagnostics, and purchase pharmaceuticals were/those that cannot stands at 34 (CI 31.8-36.2)/122 (CI 119.8-124.2)/60. The study's findings show the impact of out-of-pocket expenses and payments on access to universal healthcare in the twenty-first century, but the values obtained may be woefully insufficient to inform governmental policy decisions about the amount of money needed to fund the suggested package for patients under the national health insurance program (NHIS). This is true because household health costs are significantly influenced by socioeconomic position.

Keywords: National Health Insurance Scheme; NHIS; Out-of-Pocket; Unemployed; Federal Medical Center; FMC

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Citation

Citation: Ajobiewe JO., et al. “National Health Insurance Scheme: Effect of Out-of-Pocket Payment and Access to Health Services. A Case Study of Federal Medical Center, FMC, Jabi, Abuja".Acta Scientific Microbiology 7.2 (2024): 133-149.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2024 Ajobiewe JO., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.