NHIA, Roche scale up cancer cost-sharing treatment
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The National Health Insurance Authority has revealed that more facilities have been onboarded to offer cost-sharing financing under its partnership with Roche Oncology for cancer patients.
The Director-General of NHIA, Dr. Kelechi Ohiri, disclosed this at the Annual General Meeting of the Nigeria Association of Insurance and Pension Editors, which was held in Lagos recently.
The NHIA was formerly known as the National Health Insurance Scheme.
Ohiri, who was represented by Deputy Director, Lagos Zone, Mrs. Aisha Haruna, said, “On the cancer treatment initiative, an MoU was signed with Roche for a cost-sharing payment for NHIA enrollees for cancer treatment medication. Apart from the initial five teaching hospitals that were selected to flag off the initiative, there has been a scale-up for more facilities to provide financial access to NHIA cancer patients, with NHIA/Roche sharing the cost.”
Under the cost-sharing model, Roche will cover 50 per cent, NHIA will pay 30 per cent, while patients contribute just 20 per cent of the cost of select chemotherapy medications. An N10,000 service charge per cycle will also apply.
The NHIA also indicated that it had expanded coverage to fistula patients, adding that the Fistula-Free Initiative and Financing CEmOC Services have collectively empowered over 7,500 women as of May 2025.
Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric Care is a critical component in the global effort to reduce maternal mortality rates.
The DG representative noted that 2,690 women received life-changing obstetric fistula repairs at 17 dedicated centres, while 5,289 women benefited from emergency obstetric care at over 200 CEmOC facilities.
According to her, from 2024 to 2025, NHIA’s strategic interventions include the revision of tariffs, resolving complaints, sanctioning non-compliant providers/HMOs, and revising accreditation processes, as well as mandating a one-hour limit for care authorisation codes.
“These interventions are helping to mitigate previous issues of medicine shortages, care denials/delays in issuing codes, and provider payment delays.
“A few years back, we upgraded to self-automated, but now we are fully automated on accreditation of NHI facilities, and I can assure you any facility that we ascertain to have met the standards will meet international standards. We use Safe Care tools, and everything is done online. You have over 100 questions on that platform, the tool that we use,” she said.
The NHIA added that it had started an accreditation of over 192 facilities in Lagos.
“We are running accreditation, and we will soon be embarking on reaccreditation because we have upgraded the standard. We are going to carry out re-accreditation of these facilities to ensure that those that were initially accredited are still operating within the standard or that they can meet the current standard. And for those who cannot meet the standard, they will be asked to exit the platform,” she concluded.
