Bahamians wasted no time applying for National Health Insurance following its launch yesterday, which witnessed an excess of 350 applicants enrolling in the programme, according to NHI Project Manager Dr. Delon Brennen.
Mr. Brennen said yesterday’s launch brought Bahamians one step close to receiving Primary Care services at no cost at point of care.
He further noted that given the excitement surrounding NHI, he expects the number of persons enrolling to increase significantly over the next two weeks.
As it stands, some 60 plus providers are already signed on, but this number he too expects to rise.
“In the private sector, we have in excess of 60 in our private sector and in our public sector we have all of our provider facilities in New Providence. The ones in Grand Bahama are being added and in the Family Islands,” he said.
“So once we have all of our private sector and public sector facilities added, we will have in excess 140 to 150 actual physician providers in the NHI programme.”
The total amount of time for physician visits is expected to improve under NHI.
“The average visit that we have built into our primary care provider visit is 25 minutes,” he said.
“Right now, within the healthcare sector the visits are much shorter than that now. So we’ve actually built in an ability for providers to see their beneficiaries or patients longer than they were in the past based on our reimbursement model.”
Also on hand for yesterday’s launch was former Bahamas and Doctors President Dr. Charles Clarke who stressed that Family Islanders should not be worried about being left out of the benefits of NHI.
“For those who doubt or are still blind to the initiatives’ benefits, let me assure you that every island will have a resident physician,” he said.
“This is acknowledged by the fact that there are upgrades in the facilities in New Providence and on the Family Islands. There’s been technological upgrades and even medical records modernization where we can decrease the waiting time and certainly have faster processing for our patients.”
