Despite his busy schedule as the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Chief Executive, Dr. Okoe Boye has reappropriated some time to do general medical consulting services.
As a professional medical practitioner, Dr. Okoe Boye on Monday, August 15, 2022, spent considerable hours at the LEKMA Hospital in Accra, where he interfaced with 20 patients.
Seventeen of the patients he dealt with were active members of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
The patients who were privileged to have the NHIA Chief Executive attend to them commended him for not abandoning the LEKMA Hospital, following his appointment.
Dr. Okoe Boye urged them to promptly renew their membership cards using the Mobile Renewal Service short code *929# as the NHIS remains the surest way to reduce out-of-pocket payment of healthcare services.
He appealed to the general population to get enrolled onto the NHIS and take advantage of the generous benefits package available on the Scheme. The NHIS prides itself in covering over 95 percent of disease conditions that exist in Ghana.
Dr. Okoe Boye recounted the upward adjustment of NHIA medicine tariffs by some 30 percent meant to ensure that health facilities will have essential drugs available to take care of the public.
The NHIS Medicines List which is a subset of the National Essential Drug List has over 500 formulations to treat a wide spectrum of disease conditions in the country.
The NHIS is undoubtedly a critical funding source for most public healthcare providers. The LEKMA Hospital, like many other health facilities, is heavily reliant on NHIS card bearers whose patronage constitutes over 80% of their internally generated funds that sustains the running of the facility.
Assumption of Office
The former Member of Parliament for Ledzokuku Constituency in the Greater Accra Region was honored by President Nana Akufo-Addo to serve as the NHIA’s new Chief Executive.
The Governing Board on May 3, 2022, outdoored Dr. Okoe Boye pursuant to Section 14 (1) of the National Health Insurance Act, 2012 (Act 852).
As the youngest Chief Executive of the NHIA, the former Deputy Health Minister took over from Dr. Lydia Dsane-Selby who was in charge since 2019.
Prior to his appointment, Hon. Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye was a member of the NHIA Board and had chaired several strategic committee meetings.
Transformation Strategy
Dr. Okoe Boye who extensively interacted with staff and other external key stakeholders, unveiled his vision to make the NHIA the best public sector organization in Ghana.
He declared his ambition to empower staff, strengthen the NHIA brand, and leverage the organization’s resources to execute its strategic plan during his tenure.
“My vision is to make the NHIA, the most visible and reliable public organization with the most vibrant staff and I promise to evaluate the current structure of the Authority to make the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) more efficient.”
He promised to execute what he described as the 5Ds@2D agenda as the NHIS 20th Anniversary will be marked in the year 2023.
Dr. Okoe Boye explained the 5Ds@2D as Digitization, Development, Data, Dissemination, Decentralization at 20 years of the existence of the NHIS.
Since he took over, NHIA staff across board have hailed his stellar performance so far and called for proactive measures to improve their welfare.