How Rivia is utilizing WhatsApp to rethink healthcare entry in Ghana

For greater than a decade, Job Konadu, a 33-year-old electrical technician in Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest metropolis, relied on the nation’s Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Scheme (NHIS) for his medical care. For him, nevertheless, routine hospital visits typically turned a check of persistence.

“Generally you go to the hospital and keep in a queue for hours,” Konadu stated. “And even then, you won’t get the remedy or remedy you want. They inform you to purchase the standard medicine outdoors and offer you simply painkillers. I used to spend the entire day within the hospital, which was very hectic.”

The NHIS, established in 2003, was designed to offer common well being protection and cut back out-of-pocket medical bills for Ghanaians. In its early years, it coated a variety of therapies and medicines at minimal price. Over time, delayed reimbursements, useful resource shortages, and gaps in protection have made entry more and more unpredictable for a lot of customers. 

As these challenges persist, employers more and more flip to advert hoc reimbursement schemes, paying employees again for medical bills somewhat than providing structured healthcare protection.

For workers, this typically meant paying out of pocket first and ready weeks and even months for reimbursement.

That have is now starting to shift for some Ghanaians via Rivia, a healthtech startup co-founded by Isidore Kpotufe in 2024. The platform goals to reimagine healthcare entry for workers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and particular person customers via a free digital care plan. 

Moderately than working as a conventional insurer, Rivia affords what it calls “Well being Entry,” a subscription-based system designed to ensure entry to care via each digital and in-person consultations, with funds and prescriptions managed digitally.

Healthcare by way of WhatsApp

For Rivia customers, healthcare begins and unfolds on  WhatsApp, from reserving appointments to digital consultations and prescription fulfilment. The platform depends on WhatsApp as a result of sufferers already use it day by day, eliminating the necessity to obtain or be taught a brand new software and making care immediately accessible, even for low-income customers.

Konadu first used Rivia in November 2025. After registering, he reached out by way of WhatsApp when he fell sick. 

“I launched myself, informed them which firm I used to be coming from, they usually responded instantly,” he stated. “They requested what the issue was, I defined by typing or sending a voice observe, after which they despatched me a hyperlink to e-book a health care provider’s appointment.”

The system routinely confirms appointments, sends reminders 30 and 5 minutes earlier than the scheduled time, and manages follow-ups. 

After consultations, sufferers obtain their analysis and prescription via WhatsApp. Medicines are coordinated with close by companion pharmacies, and sufferers can submit receipts straight via the identical channel for reimbursement.

“Digital care applications typically fail as a result of they power individuals into a brand new app,” Kpotufe stated. “WhatsApp permits us to fulfill sufferers the place they already are, offering instantaneous, acquainted entry and growing adoption of digital consultations throughout our community.”

Inside RiviaOS

Whereas WhatsApp simplifies entry for sufferers, the technical spine of Rivia is a proprietary platform referred to as RiviaOS. The system grew out of the acquisition of Waffle, a Ghanaian SaaS firm centered on hospital and stock administration, shortly after Rivia’s launch in April 2024. Waffle’s instruments had been rebranded as RiviaOS and now unify affected person data, clinic workflows, scheduling, billing, and operational administration throughout the community.

Based on Kpotufe, this integration permits care to maneuver seamlessly between digital and bodily settings. 

“Digital consultations are documented in RiviaOS,” he stated. “When a supplier refers a affected person for an in-person go to, the affected person authorises report entry via a one-time password. The receiving supplier can immediately view the affected person’s data and proceed care.”

At Teresa Hospital in Accra, one of many first clinics to affix Rivia, these modifications are already seen in day-to-day operations. Dr Samuel Nai, a prescriber on the major healthcare centre, stated the hospital joined Rivia throughout its pilot section.

“On the time, we had been transitioning from paper data and increasing past maternity care, however we didn’t have the infrastructure to assist that,” Nai stated. “ Rivia supplied the techniques, expertise, and coaching that made the shift doable.

Based on Nai, affected person data, billing, and care coordination at the moment are managed via RiviaOS, changing handbook processes and decreasing administrative friction. 

“All the pieces runs on the working system now,” he stated. “It has made our work extra structured, extra predictable, and simpler to handle.”

A distinct mannequin of insurance coverage

Rivia differentiates itself from conventional insurance coverage by specializing in entry somewhat than danger underwriting. 

“Insurance coverage is constructed on exclusion,” Kpotufe stated. “Well being Entry flips that. Everybody deserves a entrance door to care, and the system ought to make that door simple to open.”

That positioning locations Rivia in competitors with each conventional well being insurers and digital-first healthcare platforms. Typical insurers comparable to Nationwide and Acacia primarily act as monetary intermediaries, accumulating premiums and reimbursing care delivered by third-party suppliers.

Rivia additionally overlaps with healthtech startups like MPharma and MinoHealth AI Labs, providing digital consultations and care coordination. However Kpotufe argued most cease at digital entry. 

“Apps alone don’t ship healthcare,” he stated. “Our benefit is the bodily infrastructure behind the expertise. We will transfer a affected person from a WhatsApp chat to a clinic, laboratories, and prescriptions with out breaking the care journey.”

That mixture of bodily clinics and digital entry additionally shapes how Rivia makes cash.

For employers, Rivia operates a business-to-business mannequin tied on to service supply. Corporations pay a set annual membership charge of $40 per worker, which covers entry to Rivia’s expertise and digital care companies. 

Employers may also choose into an extra cashless care association designed to make well being spending predictable. Funds are made to companion clinics, which then ship care to workers via the Rivia system. As the first organiser of care and acquirer of members, Rivia earns a margin from this association, Kpotufe stated.

For people outdoors formal employment, the corporate operates a parallel mannequin. What was beforehand a free providing has now been transformed right into a low-cost digital care card priced at $9 per yr and designed particularly for mass-market use. 

The cardboard is bought via an increasing community of brokers working in communities and pharmacies, utilizing a distribution strategy much like cell cash companies. Whereas the digital care element is obtainable at minimal price, Kpotufe stated it features as an acquisition channel that drives affected person quantity into Rivia clinics.

On the facility stage, customers pay for bodily diagnostics and medicines, permitting the corporate to seize worth throughout the complete affected person journey, from the primary WhatsApp session to in-person remedy and prescription fulfilment.

At clinics, suppliers proceed to function alongside NHIS somewhat than changing it fully. 

“We nonetheless run NHIS alongside Rivia,” Nai stated. “Folks are available with NHIS, and we attend to them. Others are available with Rivia. The distinction is predictability and high quality.”

Rivia on the clinic stage

Since launch, Rivia says it has partnered with 52 clinics and impacted over 50,000 sufferers. About 70% of consultations start just about, with AI-enabled triage accumulating signs by way of WhatsApp and routing sufferers appropriately.

For clinics like Teresa Hospital, affected person quantity has elevated, although not all the time in a uniform means. 

“Earlier than, we used to get three or 4 sufferers a day, principally walk-ins,” Nai stated. “With Rivia, we now common between eight and 15  sufferers. Generally it triples, typically it doesn’t, however it is much better than earlier than.”

Extra importantly, appointments have changed uncertainty. “Earlier than, you got here to work hoping somebody would are available,” Nai stated. “Now, you already know who you will notice as a result of individuals have booked appointments.”

Nonetheless, challenges stay. Nai pointed to gaps in how pharmacy inventories sync with the system and the necessity for higher inside communication instruments inside RiviaOS, comparable to real-time notifications between laboratories and prescribers. For now, some updates are dealt with manually, and employees nonetheless depend on telephone requires inside coordination.

Scaling and growth

Scaling the platform presents operational and technical stress. 

“Each time we add a brand new firm or clinic, the entire machine has to stage up so high quality doesn’t slip,” Kpotufe stated. “The demand for easy healthcare entry is very large. The true check is scaling our infrastructure quick sufficient.”

In 2024, Rivia raised a pre-seed spherical of $200,000 from Kaleo Ventures, Quick Ahead Ventures, Chanzo Capital, and Taurus Enterprise Capital to construct RiviaOS, improve clinics, and increase its community. The corporate is now elevating a seed spherical to scale worker well being entry in Ghana and assist regional growth.

Rivia is making ready to increase into Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, and Kenya, adapting its mannequin to native laws, pricing buildings, and clinic partnerships. Regulatory classification stays a key consideration as the corporate navigates whether or not it’s considered as a supplier, insurer, or a brand new class altogether.

In Ghana, healthcare financing fashions are primarily regulated via the Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Authority, which oversees insurance-based schemes, whereas bodily amenities fall beneath the Well being Amenities Regulatory Company. Rivia doesn’t function as an insurer, nor does it present care straight as a standalone well being facility. As a substitute, it features as an entry and cost platform that sits between employers, sufferers, and licensed clinics.

Based on Kpotufe, this has required ongoing engagement with regulators to make clear how the mannequin ought to be handled inside present frameworks. The corporate has proposed the creation of a definite regulatory strategy for well being entry platforms, separate from conventional insurance coverage oversight, whereas persevering with to adjust to knowledge safety and facility-level laws.

For Kpotufe, the long-term ambition is broader than firm progress. 

“5 years from now, we would like healthcare in Africa to be as simple as two clicks,” he stated. “One membership, assured care, and a system the place clinics, employers, and sufferers are all related.”

Rivia bets that embedding expertise, clinic networks, and pay as you go entry right into a single system can flip fragmented, out-of-pocket healthcare into one thing predictable and humane. Whether or not that mannequin can scale throughout Africa stays to be seen, however for sufferers like Konadu and clinics like Teresa Hospital, it already represents a significant shift in how care is accessed and delivered.