Formal sector functionalities of openIMIS have been further developed and customised for several country implementations in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nepal and Congo Brazaville. In this Bhela developer teams provide insight into the specific use cases.

The knowledge sharing on these use cases will work as a preparation to then discuss which of the developed formal sector functionalities would be relevant to pull into the standard software / main software package, in a Deep Dive Call / Gumzo.

Co-ordinates

Date: 27.03.2024

Time: 10.00 AM Central European Time (CET)

Room: MS Teams

Participants: (kindly only add yourself, not others):

•  (20 participants from implementers, developers, +)

Schedule

Meeting Minutes

Intro

• Increased interest in formal sector functionalities of openIMIS as implementations are going on in several countries

• Kicking-off discussion in 2 parts:

  • Looking at functional side with presentation of requirements from country implementations (e.g.) Nigeria and inputs from teams who have been working on the global product

  • Follow-up discussion on technical level looking at software components

• presented case: In Nigeria, the Gambian tech company 2M Corp, with support from the ILO, have adapted openIMIS to support the Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority (KADCHMA), a state-wide social health insurance scheme with over 400,000 enrolees in Kaduna state. To get an overview of the scheme, please also check 2M Corp’s Yolande Margaret Goswell presentation from the Community Connect (Feb 2024) here: watch on YouTube. The implementation includes the development of new functionality as well:  (i)  pre-authorization of claims; and (ii) a grievance redressal mechanism (openIMIS newsletter March 2024)

Presentation on KADCHMA scheme

• KADCHMA scheme has two kinds of beneficiaries in formal and informal sector

  • Informal sector insures contributions based on out-of-pocket payments

  • Formal sector insures, mainly government employees, contributions via deduction from their salary (currently 3%)

• Customisation for the KADCHMA scheme, formal sector

  • 3% percent rule for salary-based contribution (originally starting from 5%)

  • Bulk upload of insures (register insures into a policy under formal sector)

  • Report functionality on collected contribution in formal sector scheme

• Using opportunity of currently ongoing training to share collected feedback = user requirements:

  • A) Policy holder portal needs to be improved with regards to user friendliness – an extra session is planned as part of the training to learn more about specific user needs

  • B) Renumeration (salary payments) are done at level of Federal Government, need for feature of automatic removal of employees who get retired

Questions & Answers with Yolande / 2M Corp

• Question on A) Requesting details on requirements for improved user friendliness (via JIRA tickets)

  • Nigeria: merging of insure (lists) – e.g. employees from Ministry of Education and from Ministry of Higher Education – merging into one list of an entity or creation of list with a new entity

  • Note to implementation teams: make use of possibility to suggest revision names of functions for example Policy Holder and individual contracts (which were originally decided at stage of software development), as it comes from a different policy environment etc. – maintenance team open to review and change naming

• Explanation on B) with functionality of adding an insure to a certain policy, usually 2 dates need to be added

  • date ‘valid from’ which onwards insure joins policy

  • date ‘valid to’ ,i.e. date of retirement, so that insure would automatically be removed from beneficiary list

•  Question on which version of openIMIS customisations have been added to

  • Policy holder functionality (A) is based on already existing openIMIS module 

• Requesting demo of bulk import of insures

  • Import from excel list  (data on insure name, ID, income, date ‘valid from’ etc.) 

• Request on code for bulk import

Discussion

• Challenge of varying salary and in consequence deduction (contribution) – with updates on monthly basis (Burkina Faso)

  • Existing reference cases for UNOPS implementation and Djibouti with likewise monthly updates on these parameters – use functionalities via ‘contract’ processes – policy holder has to update income data via contract and review ((contribution plan + contribution bundle), workflow on this will be shared in the wiki under https://openimis.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OP/pages/1730740273    

• On contribution as salary deduction e.g. Nepal case (SSF) combined deduction - financed through salary-based contributions amounting to 31 % of a worker’s/employee’s basic salary whereby 11 % is paid by the worker/employee and 20 % is borne by the employer

  • Fundamental difference of KADCHMA scheme, compared to Nepal / SSF schemes, it is only a health insurance scheme, whereas SSF contribution covers multiple schemes (‘contribution bundles’ = integrates several benefits) including pension

  • In the described case of Nepal several ‘contribution plan’s are sub-surmised under a ‘contribution bundle’, i.e. for each benefit one contribution plan is created, subsequently the contribution bundle is created where you define which contribution plans are pulled into the bundle; these bundles might vary by person / insure (bundles can be defined individually) https://openimis.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SB/pages/3623878972

•  Encouraging work on documentation – user manual, might need additions on the formal sector functionalities 

Follow-up (preparation of part II discussion)

• Recommendation in preparation of follow-up call on software development aspects (developers deep dive) – to work on gap analysis overview (required functionality from user side vs. existing – developed openIMIS functionality) and present it in the wiki

  • Documentation suggested under: Formal Sector Modules - openIMIS - openIMIS Wiki (atlassian.net)

  • Comparative table is being prepared by BlueSquare on functionalities in formal sector being prepared for Congo Br., Nigeria and Burkina Faso --> suggestion to add columns for other country implementations (e.g. Nigeria, Nepal) and comparison against ‘idealised instance’ (process)

  • Overview on existing formal sector schemes with details on their architecture, what modules are being used and what additional (external) modules have been developed to cover scheme-specific requirements

  • In initial development of formal sector functionalities via Digital Square mechanism (tendering process: Digital Square RFA#2019-16 - Conception Phase - openIMIS - openIMIS Wiki (atlassian.net)), similar overview had been created looking at specific requirements of SSF Nepal, and comparing them to requirements that have been previously addressed for UNOPS and Djibouti implementation

  • This gap analysis can be consulted when additional resources would be available to further invest in formal sector functionality development

  • Pay attention to how requirements under formal sector also related to other business processes 

• Expressed interest in sharing of documentation of business processes – SOPs and training material – of all implementations in formal (and informal sector)

  • Specifying openIMIS modules and complementary developed (external) modules of customised version

  • Status of existing schemes

    • UNOPS and Djibouti – has not been implemented, requirements were considered for Nepal implementation

    • Nepal / SSF – documentation on employer registration is being prepared

    • Burkina Faso – implementation in preparation

    • Nigeria - …

    • Congo Br.

  • Role sharing of teams to provide documentation and openIMIS Coordination Desk supporting to provide structure in wiki 

• Follow-up call with developers during 2^nd half in April, based on suggested comparative overview from formal sector implementations