Insurance Management Information (IMIS)

IMIS (Insurance Management Information System)

The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) created the "Insurance Management Information System" (IMIS) as part of the Health Promotion and System Strengthening (HPSS) project in Tanzania, which was funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Starting in 2012, it has served as the "Improved Community Health Funds"' central information system.

Cameroon (for a Catholic Church collective health insurance program) and Nepal both later embraced IMIS (for the national health insurance scheme of the Ministry of Health and Population). This is a real-time system that has evolved to meet the requirements of many insurance schemes, each of which has a unique set of insurance policies, product definitions, and payment systems.

The "Insurance Management Information System" (IMIS) is a comprehensive insurance management system designed for:

• Supporting business processes of new or existing insurance schemes
• Ensuring availability and preciseness of information on insured
• Increasing speed of operations
• Ensuring efficient claim management
• Reducing frauds

As payrolls cannot be used for membership registration, this approach was developed to meet the demands of health insurance programs serving the rural population and the informal sector. In this type of informal sector setting, the low-cost technologies of member enrollment using mobile phones provide an effective option. Voucher schemes, health equity funds, and other types of insurance are just a few examples of how IMIS may be used to manage the distribution of benefits to a large group of people.

Features of IMIS

• Insurance plans can be defined in a variety of ways, including with respect to enrollment, contributions, benefits, and how providers are reimbursed.
• Concurrent support of several regional insurance schemes or nationwide insurance schemes administered by regional branches.
• Centralized web-based application.
• Support of different languages (e.g. in Tanzania IMIS is programmed in English and Kiswahili, in Nepal in English and Nepali)
• Off-line installations (computer and mobile phone-based) synchronized with the central database.
• Enrollment, renewals, identification inquiry, claiming, and feedback collection are also available through android based smartphones (cost-effective identification mechanism).
• Enabling portability of benefits for insured between different insurance schemes.