Kenyans can access premium health services at facilities approved for Social Health Authority (SHA) coverage by paying four months upfront.
The Social Health Authority (SHA) introduced Lipa SHA Pole Pole to ensure that no Kenyan is denied healthcare due to inability to pay the full annual premium at once.
The initiative is designed to make health cover more flexible, affordable, and accessible to everyone.
Under the Lipa SHA Pole Pole arrangement, a member is only required to pay for four months upfront. Once this initial payment is made, SHA immediately tops up the remaining eight months, activating the member’s health cover without delay making the patient access services as they look for money to continue finish the rest of the payments later.
” Lipa SHA Pole Pole is like when a friend tops up for you cash to be able to buy a pair of shoes then you later pay them. The friend will not ask you for the money, but you have at the back of the mind that they helped you get the shoes and you’ll refund later,” an official at SHA explained to help Kenyans understand.
This means that beneficiaries do not have to wait until they complete the full annual contribution to access services. Their SHA cover becomes active immediately after the initial four-month payment.
After activation, the member gradually repays the balance for the remaining eight months based on their financial ability.
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The repayments can be made daily, weekly, or monthly, offering flexibility to suit different income patterns, especially for informal workers and small-scale earners.
Importantly, Lipa SHA Pole Pole is not a loan and does not attract any interest. It is a structured payment plan designed to ease the burden of lump-sum contributions while ensuring continuous healthcare coverage.
To access Lipa SHA Pole Pole, members can:
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Dial *147#
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Select the Lipa Pole Pole option
For a beneficiary who does not have funds to pay, they have an option to use Hustler Fund as a mode of payment included at the dial of the code event as the insurer is still at talking stage with other commercial banks and government authorities for funding.
Sources at the insurer revealed that Hustler Fund partnered with them because it was the one with available funds when they were looking for funding partners to introduce Lipa Pole Pole and they wanted it to be a government to government.
Lipa SHA Pole Pole initiative reflects SHA’s commitment to expanding universal health coverage by making premium payments manageable and responsive to the financial realities of Kenyan households.
A point to note when using SHA Lipa Pole Pole is that there are no extra charges paid as the beneficiary only pays what their annual premium was estimated to during the registration process.
On SHA deducting money from beneficiary’s M-pesa wallet, the beneficiaries have the mandate to unsubscribe from the M-Ratiba (a service by M-pesa which SHA partnered with Safaricom for the payment of Lipa SHA Pole Pole.
Without unsubscribing, even after you have finished your annual payment, M-Ratiba continues to deduct money from the M-Pesa wallet as it works like a bank standing order hence the advisory to unsubscribe.
