Publication:

Health insurance enrollees’ satisfaction with health maintenance organizations and non-enrollees’ willingness to participate and pay for health insurance in Abuja, Nigeria

Background The Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) which is shouldered with the responsibility of coordinating the activities of the Health Care Providers (HCP) to ensure good services are rendered to the insured enrollees have been reported to be failing in her responsibilities. This study was conducted to determine enrollees’ satisfaction with HMOs services and the willingness of the non-insured to participate in health insurance scheme in Abuja Metropolis.

Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 400 Health Insurance enrollees using systematic sampling method. Data were collected using self-administered semi-structured questionnaires and analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20.

Results This study revealed low satisfaction of enrollees with the services rendered by their HMOs as only a few above half of the study participants 115 (54.8%) reported to have been satisfied with the services received from the health insurance administration, their service providers and the HMOs in charge.

Conclusions Though Health Insurance is a proven way of achieving universal health coverage and Health for all populations, this study showed that enrollee’s dissatisfaction with HMOs services has continually being a hindrance to this key Alma-Ata Declaration. More knowledge among enrollees about the modus operandi of HMOs will help them demand for better services as a right.