Meet NHIA’s new boss, Nathaniel Otoo

The NHIS is arguably Ghana’s biggest social intervention program. The Scheme has a total membership of 10.54million subscribers and posts quite impressive numbers for healthcare utilization.

A lot of people continue to register to be part of the NHIS underscoring the relevance of the organization to their lives. The Scheme has over the years helped to improve the health seeking behavior of people and pulled down financial barriers to seeking healthcare.

Recently, there was a change of leadership at the NHIA. Sylvester Mensah, a strategic management expert and former banker, who led the NHIA for the past 6 years was reassigned by the President. He has been credited with wide-ranging reforms and organizational restructuring at the NHIS.

Nathaniel Otoo, a lawyer and a Universal Health Coverage and risk protection technocrat was appointed to continue from where his predecessor left off. He has been an insider at the NHIA and has played significant roles prior to his elevation.

Below is a brief profile of the man who now leads the National Health Insurance Authority

Nathaniel Otoo is the Acting Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority. Until his appointment he was the Deputy Chief Executive responsible for Operations. He had earlier served as the organization’s Director of Administration & General Counsel.

For the past decade, he has pursued and developed expertise in risk protection, social security, Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and public sector reforms.

At the NHIA, he was instrumental in the review of the NHIS enabling law which now addresses the administrative and legal challenges of the previous statute, including the transformation of the District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes to a National Health Insurance Scheme.

He has also played key roles in positioning the NHIA as a promising public sector institution in Ghana.

Before entering the health financing sphere, Mr Otoo had about 20 years of work experience which spanned the social security, manufacturing and trade promotion sectors.

He holds a Masters’ Degree in International Relations from the International University of Japan, a Bachelor of Laws Degree from the University of Ghana and a professional qualification in law from the Ghana School of Law.

In addition to his work at the NHIA, he participated in the review of the policy framework and the legislative instrument for the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HFRA) of Ghana, where he is currently a board member.

He is also a board member of the National Identification Authority.

In June 2013, he was selected as the global convener of the Joint Learning Network (JLN), an international knowledge-sharing forum for 22 countries to co-develop tools and ideas that tackle the practical challenges of health systems reform to achieve Universal Health Coverage.

Mr Otoo has also undergone extensive training in management and health financing. He has co-authored and reviewed publications on Universal Health Coverage and is a regular speaker and resource person at a number of UHC forums across the globe.