Nigeria’s healthcare system may need more hospitals and doctors, but fixing the industry’s hidden operational inefficiencies will have a bigger impact on improving patient care than simply building new health facilities, according to health technology company Medismarts.
The company said while conversations around healthcare reform often focus on expanding infrastructure and increasing funding, the real challenge slowing healthcare delivery lies in the administrative processes that happen before and after a patient receives treatment.
From patient verification and health insurance approvals to claims processing, reconciliation and payments, these behind-the-scenes activities determine how quickly patients receive care and how efficiently hospitals, healthcare providers and Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) operate.
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“A patient does not care how many internal processes happen before they see a doctor. They only know how long they waited. Healthcare also needs better operations. Operations determine how efficiently everything else works,” Obinna Osuji, co-founder and CEO, Medismarts told BusinessDay.
Osuji’s comments come as Nigeria pushes to expand health insurance coverage under the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and improve access to quality healthcare for its growing population. While government investments have largely focused on hospitals, medical equipment and healthcare personnel, industry experts say inefficient administrative systems continue to create delays that reduce the quality of patient experience.
According to the CEO, healthcare delivery depends on a chain of interconnected activities. “A patient’s identity must be verified, health insurance eligibility confirmed, consultations completed, laboratory tests approved, medications prescribed, claims submitted and providers reimbursed. A delay in one process can slow every other stage of care,” he affirmed.
The company said these operational bottlenecks often go unnoticed by patients but significantly affect hospitals, insurers and healthcare providers.
One example is tariff uploads and service code matching between hospitals and HMOs. Although largely invisible to patients, differences in how healthcare providers and insurers classify the same medical services can delay approvals, complicate claims reconciliation and increase administrative workloads.
“Problems like these rarely make headlines, but they quietly affect the efficiency of healthcare every day,” Osuji said.
The challenge becomes even greater as healthcare demand increases.
Medismarts disclosed that its platform processed 819,246 healthcare claims in 2025, while more than 73,000 claims were processed in June 2026 alone, alongside over 50,000 API transactions every day. At that volume, even minor inefficiencies can translate into thousands of hours of lost productivity across the healthcare ecosystem.
The company said improving operational efficiency produces benefits beyond reducing paperwork. Faster claims processing improves cash flow for healthcare providers, reduces reconciliation disputes for HMOs and allows healthcare professionals to spend more time treating patients rather than handling administrative tasks.
According to Osuji, organisations using its platform have recorded 95 percent improvement in claims processing, while manual administrative work, reconciliation and enrolment processes have each improved by approximately 97 percent.
The company, which works with 26 HMOs and more than 3,000 healthcare providers across Nigeria, said the experience has shown that many organisations face similar operational challenges despite differences in size and business models.
Osuji argued that introducing digital technology alone is not enough to transform healthcare delivery.
Instead, healthcare organisations must redesign existing processes, improve collaboration between hospitals and insurers and build trust in new digital workflows that eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks.
“The best systems do not just digitise existing processes; they remove unnecessary friction and make everyday work easier for everyone involved,” he asserted.
Healthcare analysts say the message reflects a broader shift taking place across the global health sector, where digital transformation is increasingly focused on improving operational efficiency rather than simply digitising paper records.
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As Nigeria’s healthcare needs continue to grow, experts believe the next phase of reform will depend on how effectively healthcare providers, insurers and technology companies modernise the systems that support patient care.
For Medismarts, the future of healthcare will not be defined solely by the number of hospitals that are built, but by how efficiently the systems behind those hospitals function.
“Healthcare does not scale through manual processes. It scales when the systems behind the care are just as efficient as the people delivering it,” Osuji asserted.
