A month into the new fiscal year, subscription to the community-based health insurance scheme (CBHI), locally known as Mutuelle de Santé, has reached 60 per cent.

The current fiscal year 2017/2018 started in July and, according to Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB), which manages the scheme, this is encouraging as it surpasses the target of 50 per cent subscription rate in the first month.

The target is to have 100 per cent subscription before the end of the fiscal year.

Déogratias Ntigurirwa, Division Manager for CBHI Mobilisation and Registration at RSSB, told this newspaper yesterday that around August last year subscription was at 52 per cent while it was under 50 per cent around the same time in 2015.

He attributes the improved subscription pace to RSSB’s campaigns that sensitised citizens to pay their Mutuelle de Santé premiums early enough before the start of the new fiscal year.

"The improved subscription speed is due to mobilisation efforts that have been undertaken. We started receiving money as early as January,” Ntigurirwa said in an interview.

RSSB, which took over the management of Mutuelle de Santé from districts in July 2015 as part of a solution to a dip in subscriptions to the scheme and poor management of its funds, registered 84.3 per cent of the targeted users in the last fiscal year 2016/2017.

Mutuelle de Santé remains the most common health insurance plan for Rwandans, covering at least 9.6 million people ( out of about 11.5 million people), especially those living in rural areas with meagre income.

Its premiums are paid for any time but its card’s validity ends with the financial year for which the subscription has been made.

To avoid long queues associated with last-minute subscription and for purposes of early planning for both users and RSSB, the board’s officials launched a campaign for citizens to pay for the Financial Year 2017/18 early January through June.

Ntigurirwa said, that during the campaign those who could afford to pay for the insurance then were advised to do so without having to wait for June.

"Our experience shows that wasting time on long queues trying to pay the subscription fees at the last minute is bad for service delivery. Those who have the money should normally pay as soon as possible,” he said.

Mutuelle premiums are paid depending on household Ubudehe categories (social stratification), with people from households in category 1 considered as indigents whose fees are paid by the Government, at Rwf2,000 per household member, while households in category 2 and 3 pay Rwf3,000.

Households in category 4, (about 0.5 per cent of the country’s population), pay Rwf7,000 per family member.

The mobilisation campaign to pay for the premiums focuses on those who have to pay for themselves because they constitute the biggest percentage, at more than 80 per cent of the country’s total population going by the 2016 Ubudehe social stratification.

RSSB’s target for Mutuelle de Santé subscription is to cover 100 per cent of the over 9.6 million people believed to be potential clients for the scheme at every fiscal year.Validity of the scheme’s card starts a month after the premium has been paid and expires at the end of the fiscal year for which the payment has been made.

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