Plateau Health agency revalidates operational guidelines to expand scope

The Plateau State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency (PLASCHEMA) says it is revalidating its operational guidelines to expand and improve service delivery toward achieving universal health coverage in the State in the year 2023.

The Director-General of PLASCHEMA, Dr. Fabong Jemchang stated this in Jos on Tuesday during a two-day revalidation meeting and revised operational guidelines engagement with secondary care providers under the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) and Stakeholders meetings on Mandatory Health insurance held at the Crest Hotel Jos.

Jemcheng said that the essence of the revalidation was for stakeholders to affirm and validate the inputs they made during the reversion process of the operational guidelines to make it a working document.

According to him, the revalidation will improve service delivery and care to beneficiaries, saying that the measure would improve the scheme’s engagement with healthcare providers and increase the agency’s uptake in the state social health insurance scheme.

He added that the revalidation will speed up the realization of Universal Health Coverage in the state.

The DG described the agency as “the biggest social safety net provided by the state government to eliminate out-of-pocket expenditure to improve the health indices of the people.”

He called on the public, who had not enrolled in the scheme to do so as it also served as a means of financial protection for the enrollees.

Dr. Jerry Ogwuche, one of the stakeholders at the event, said the revalidation of the scheme’s operational guidelines was apt.

He said it would address some gray areas such as payment percentage cost for some services and the inclusion of certain services that are paramount, initially not captioned in the guidelines.

Also speaking the Program Manager of Fahariya adolescent development Network and representative of the civil society network social development Zarah Dakun described the exercise as timely, saying PLASCHEMA since its establishment has given hope to the citizens of the State, adding that it has become one of the best effective agency of Plateau State Government