Not too long ago, I was invited to an industry event where I had some interesting conversations, including one with the Chief Product Officer at Wellahealth, Greg Emuze. Wellahealth is a healthtech startup with a mission to make quality healthcare accessible to people across Africa.
In that conversation, he spoke about digital health services in Nigeria and how Wellahealth is powering a number of initiatives, including AXA Digital Health. He recommended that I give AXA a try.
I am not new to the services of HMOs and digital health services, as my family has used a few in the last one decade. The last one we used was not particularly a good experience, as there were lapses in their operations.
Myself and Mrs. Mo have been talking about getting another HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) coverage since then, but we had not acted on it. So, this recommendation was an opportunity to try out the service and I decided to give it a shot. What did I have to lose?
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How AXA Digital Health works
The first step to trying out a service is to hunt for as much information as possible. I wanted to know what I was getting into. So, I hunted around for information and found quite a bit.
According to multiple sources, including their own official website, AXA Digital Health offers doctor consultations and medication pickups at over 2,300 Wellahealth partner pharmacies across Nigeria. All of these for a monthly fee that starts from as low as ₦500. Available plans go up to ₦3,500. Wellahealth is the healthcare startup that handles the medication dispense end of the process. Medication coverage is capped at ₦5,000 per month. If your prescribed medications exceed that amount, you have to cover the rest yourself.
The really extra thing is that these plans have mobile data bundled with them, as follows:
- ₦500 gives you medical consultations + medication + 2GB data for 2 days.
- ₦700 gives you medical consultations + medication + 1GB data for 7 days.
- ₦1,700 gives you medical consultations + medication + 2GB data for 30 days.
- ₦3,500 gives you medical consultations + medication + 10GB data for 30 days.
In addition, you will get reimbursed for hospital expenses if you are hospitalized for 2 nights or more, to a maximum tune of ₦40,000 and no more than three times a year. AXA says there is a 4-day wait period to be eligible for medication and hospitalization claims after subscription. Of course, reimbursement will require doctor’s report and hospital expense receipts.
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Having familiarized myself with as much details about AXA Digital Health as I could find, I picked up my phone and proceeded to sign up for the service.
My experience with the service
AXA’s digital health service can be accessed via USSD on Airtel and Glo networks. It is also available via the PalmPay app, and I understand that it is coming to more platforms in the nearest future. I hope it comes to MTN; I had to fish out my Airtel line for this. It is a number that I don’t use for any services and so hardly pay attention to or carry around.
I loaded the appropriate airtime on the line and dialed *312*44# to subscribe. I followed the prompts and successfully completed the process for a 30-day subscription. Right immediately after, I got an SMS welcoming me to the AXA Digital Health service and including a link to communicate with a doctor.
There was some technical hitch with the process of connecting me to a doctor but it was handled by the support team and I was linked up.
The Consultation
The consultation was via WhatsApp, which is good, as most people have a WhatsApp account. It went quite well and the doctor addressed my health concerns and gave me a prescription.
He also sent me a link to pick a pharmacy from. The linked page allowed me to type in my location and then select from a number of pharmacies on the Wellahealth/ AXA Digital Health network. The network has pharmacies across all the 36 states of Nigeria.
Medication Dispensing
About an hour after the consultation, I was sent medication pickup details via SMS. I stopped over at the specified pharmacy later in the day to pick up my medication.
The whole process took about 5 to 7 minutes. The pharmacist asked for my name and pickup code, and I provided those. They packaged the items the doctor had listed in my prescription and handed the package over to me.
There was no additional cost for these either. All I had paid for the entire service was the monthly subscription to AXA Digital Health.
The idea of a digital health service of this sort makes sense. It is affordable and offers convenience. Personally, I dislike going to sit in waiting lines at the hospital and I avoid it as much as possible.
Of course, if a medical condition requires a physical inspection or test, there is no way to avoid that. But it is good to be able to get medical attention at the most basic levels without having to go to a hospital or clinic. And it sure is great to be able to pick prescribed medicine without having to pay cash all the time.