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Biometrics helps stop healthcare fraud

Technology, developed by two South African companies, is changing the face of medical schemes in Namibia.

In a move to strengthen administrative flexibility and security, the leading medical schemes in Namibia, namely Namibia Health Plan (NHP), Nammed and Renaissance Health, engaged LifePoint and Muvoni Biometric & Smartcard Solutions (MBSS) for a way forward. A fully integrated approach was developed, including three key pillars, namely:

* Point-of-care and point-of-sale devices, fitted with biometric fingerprint capability;

* A cloud-based platform for member enrolment and identity verification; and

* One system that integrates the medical schemes’ administrative systems, payment systems and clinical practice management systems across healthcare provider points around Namibia.

Although in the early stages of full implementation, the results have the potential to be impressive. Since members are correctly identified and benefits are verified prior to consultation, the risk of bad debts is mitigated. At the same time, the medical scheme is more competitively placed. Access to secure, up-to-date data gives the edge in being able to review the outcome of processes and reduce errors.

Despite considerable experience in designing complex, integrated biometric systems, MBSS MD, Stan Khan, says that developing a centralised database is always challenging. “In this case, members’ fingerprints were linked to existing membership cards. Further growth will be managed in the normal course of on-boarding a member.”

In partnership with Fides Cloud Services and LifePoint, MBSS provided all the hardware and software, as well as the cloud-based platform for member enrolment and identity verification.

“Given the soaring costs of healthcare fraud, integrated biometric systems are the way-to-go in the future. They’re becoming increasingly popular among medical schemes locally and globally. They can easily be applied to banks and in­surance companies, which are also battling the consequences of fraud,” adds Khan.

MBSS is a member of the Muvoni Technology Group, the identity verification authority. Other Group companies are Afiswitch for criminal record checks and Managed Integrity Evaluation (MIE) for background screening.

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