Barriers and motivations for health insurance subscription in Cape Coast, Ghana: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: One of the main objectives of the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme, at its establishment in 2003, was to ease financial burden of the full cost recovery policy, particularly on the poor. However, currently, majority of the scheme’s subscribers are individuals in the upper wealth quintile, as the poor in society rather have not subscribed. We explored the motivational factors as well as the barriers to health insurance subscription in the Cape Coast Metropolis of Ghana. METHODS: This study collected qualitative data from 30 purposively selected subscribers and non-subscribers to the National Health Insurance Scheme using an in-depth interview guide. RESULTS: Major motivational factors identified were; affordable health insurance premium, access to free drugs, and social security against unforeseen health challenges. Encouragement by friends, family members, and colleagues, was also found to motivate subscription to the health insurance. The major barriers to health insurance subscription included; long queues and waiting time, perceived poor quality of drugs, and negative attitude of service providers both at the healthcare facilities and the health insurance office. The study underscores the need for the National Health Insurance Authority to conduct intensive education to change the negative perception people have regarding the quality of health insurance drugs. Efforts should also be made to reduce the waiting time in accessing healthcare with the National Health Insurance Scheme card. This would motivate more people to subscribe or renew their membership. CONCLUSIONS: The implication of barriers found is that people may not subscribe to the scheme in subsequent years. This would, therefore, consequently defeat the objective of achieving universal healthcare coverage with the scheme. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13690-017-0192-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.