Beyond the Bedside: Meet Pelumi Akinboade, the Insurance Nurse, Expanding the Possibilities of Nursing

For many people, “nurse” still brings to mind scrubs, hospital wards, medications and bedside care.

Pelumi Akinboade is proof that nursing can take you somewhere very different.

A registered nurse who spent about two years in clinical practice before moving into health insurance, Mr. Pelumi has built a career at the intersection of nursing, healthcare financing and managed care. His work has earned him the identity he is now widely associated with: The Insurance Nurse.

But Mr. Pelumi’s work goes beyond occupying a non-traditional nursing role. He educates other nurses about opportunities in health insurance and challenges the limitations that often shape how they see their careers.

We spoke with him about his journey into health insurance, the roles nurses can play in the industry, mentorship, finding a professional niche and why nurses must eventually move from the bedside into the strategy room.

African Nurses: Who is Pelumi Akinboade beyond the title “The Insurance Nurse”?

Pelumi Akinboade: I’m a registered nurse. I graduated from LAUTECH in 2016 and worked in clinical practice for about two years before entering health insurance.

Initially, I knew I wanted to work in public health, although I didn’t know exactly where. When the opportunity to work in health insurance came, I took it.

I fell in love with the space because I saw the impact it could have on both the population and nurses. I realised I could help nurses, particularly in Nigeria and across Africa, use their nursing background to explore the corporate side of healthcare.

That was where I found purpose, and it eventually earned me the identity of “The Insurance Nurse.”

African Nurses: Why did you become a nurse?

Pelumi Akinboade: Initially, my family encouraged me because they believed nursing would lead to good opportunities. But when I entered nursing, I found something beyond that.

I realized I was there for a particular purpose.

Being a male nurse came with its own stereotypes, but that sense of purpose helped me navigate them. Even as a student, I knew I wanted to be bold and pioneer paths many people were afraid to take. I wanted to show people what was possible.

African Nurses: Your transition into health insurance was influenced by mentorship. How did that happen?

Pelumi Akinboade: A mentor opened that door for me.

After my NYSC, I shared some of my healthcare-related visions with a mentor. That conversation connected me to someone in the sector, and a company they were partnering with needed a male nurse.

That became my entry point into health insurance.

Once I entered the industry, I began to see the opportunities available for both the population and nurses. I realized this was the path I wanted to pursue.

African Nurses: Why is mentorship important to professional growth?

Pelumi Akinboade: Mentors have already gone through the path you’re trying to navigate.

Without mentorship, you may spend one or two years figuring out things you could have learned through relationships and the wisdom of someone with experience.

Mentors also open doors. They have built credibility and relationships over time. When they introduce you to someone, you can leverage the trust they have already established instead of starting from scratch.

So, if you’re exploring a career path, identify people already doing what you want to do or who have the wisdom to guide you. Build relationships with them through respect, service and honour.

That is one of the shortcuts to growth.

African Nurses: For nurses unfamiliar with insurance nursing, what does an insurance nurse do?

Pelumi Akinboade: An insurance nurse is simply a nurse who works within the health insurance industry, and there are several areas where nurses can function.

One is utilization review. A utilisation review nurse receives requests from hospitals for procedures and services and determines whether they are medically necessary, appropriate and covered under the patient’s plan. They also consider cost containment: how do we provide quality healthcare at an affordable rate without compromising care?

There is case management, where a nurse follows an insured patient’s admission to ensure quality services are provided and the patient is not paying unnecessarily out of pocket.

Then there are claims management. Nurses vet claims submitted by hospitals, checking whether services were provided, authorized, covered by the patient’s benefits and accurately billed.

Another area is quality assurance.

I have had the privilege of visiting about 100 hospitals across different states as part of quality assurance activities. You go in with a checklist and assess whether required standards are being met, from the theatre and laboratory to case notes and emergency equipment.

The fact that someone is an insurance patient does not mean they should receive substandard care. Quality assurance helps ensure that doesn’t happen.

There is also provider network management, where nurses manage relationships with healthcare providers. Depending on the organization, nurses can also work in customer relationship management.

So, not every nurse is in scrubs. Some nurses are on headsets, reviewing cases and making healthcare decisions within insurance organizations’.

African Nurses: What nursing skills have been most useful in health insurance?

Pelumi Akinboade: Clinical knowledge is a major advantage.

You need to understand the appropriate line of treatment for different diagnoses. If a hospital requests an investigation or procedure, you should be able to determine whether it is necessary for that condition.

That medical intelligence is important in utilization review and claims management.

Attention to detail is another transferable skill. You have to check the patient’s name, age, gender, insurance number, medical history and other details when reviewing a request or claim.

Then there is reporting and communication. In insurance, you make decisions involving significant amounts of money and, more importantly, people’s lives. You need to report promptly, communicate with your manager and maintain accountability and transparency.

The skills nurses develop clinically don’t become useless when they leave the bedside. They become assets that can be applied differently.

African Nurses: Why are nurses still underrepresented in the business and leadership side of healthcare?

Pelumi Akinboade: Part of the problem is our training.

We were trained to become skilled nurses, but not necessarily to think about the business side of our careers.

Many of the people who trained us were salaried professionals, so that was the model we saw. You can’t give what you don’t have.

We need to think beyond simply being skilled.

Clinical skill is the foundation, but it shouldn’t be the end of the journey.

African Nurses: You have spoken about nurses moving from the bedside into the “strategy room.” What does that mean?

Pelumi Akinboade: Many nurses eventually become tired of the routine and ask, “I’ve deployed my skills enough. What next?”

I believe there should be another stage of career development.

After demonstrating your expertise at the bedside and developing your medical intelligence, you should learn strategic thinking: leadership, boardroom negotiations, raising capital, pitching business ideas and even venture building.

We’ve seen the problems in the clinical setting. Instead of spending our entire careers complaining about them, we should learn how to provide solutions.

We should move from being custodians of problems to becoming solution providers.

The problems we encounter while deploying our skills can become the foundation for businesses, organizations’  and structures that solve them.

African Nurses: If nurses move into strategy, business and corporate roles, what happens to bedside nursing?

Pelumi Akinboade: We all need clinical experience.

Even I am not completely out of clinical practice. That experience becomes the foundation for whatever solutions we eventually provide.

The idea is not that everyone should leave the bedside. We need a more flexible career structure where nurses can diversify.

Someone could work clinically while teaching. Another person could work in corporate healthcare and maintain some clinical practice. Someone else could combine clinical nursing with research.

That flexibility can make work more interesting, reduce boredom and create additional income streams while ensuring that enough nurses remain in clinical care.

Clinical experience should not be abandoned. We should leverage it.

African Nurses: What challenges did you face when building a career in insurance nursing?

Pelumi Akinboade: There weren’t many mentors, communities or associations helping nurses find their footing in the space.

There was also a lot of stereotyping. Some people believed that if you were a nurse, you had to remain in the clinical setting. If you weren’t in the hospital, they wondered what you were doing.

But one skill we must never lose is the ability to reinvent ourselves and keep learning.

Health insurance is still unfamiliar to many nurses, so when I began identifying publicly as an insurance nurse, creating content and running campaigns across universities, things started to change.

Students began organizing their own webinars and showing interest in the field.

I don’t claim to be the first nurse to work in health insurance. Nurses were already there. But I wanted to bring the career path into the limelight and make it something nurses could see and understand.

African Nurses: How should a nurse find their niche outside the bedside?

Pelumi Akinboade: Your niche is the combination of your strengths, your passion and the problems in your industry.

First, understand yourself. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are you passionate about?

Then look at the problems around you.

Someone who is a good communicator and writer could explore nursing media and storytelling. There are narratives and stereotypes about nursing that need to be corrected, and that problem itself can become a niche.

You don’t have to wait until you leave clinical practice. You can start building around your strengths while still practicing.

I have always enjoyed mentoring and coaching. I started mentoring people as far back as my undergraduate years, and that strength eventually became part of what I do today as a nurse coach.

So, study yourself. Find your strengths. Find your passion. Then identify the problems you can solve.

African Nurses: You often talk about nurses becoming builders and innovators. What needs to change in how nurses see themselves?

Pelumi Akinboade: We need a paradigm shift.

Nurses need to understand that they can be inventors, innovators, venture builders and business owners.

We often complain about problems in nursing, but problems are also opportunities.

The gap I identified — that very few nurses were publicly positioning themselves as experts in health insurance — became an opportunity for me to build influence and educate others.

We also need to become more patient with our ideas. People sometimes think success happens overnight, but many successful ideas were built quietly for years before people recognized them.

Can you work on an idea for 10 or 15 years before it becomes a global success?

Can you keep building, negotiating and speaking to investors when nobody believes in the idea yet?

That’s the mindset shift we need.

African Nurses: What do you see as the future of nursing in Nigeria and Africa?

Pelumi Akinboade: The future of nursing is bright, but we need more conversations and platforms that help nurses rewire their mindset.

We need to embrace innovation, invention, leadership, ownership, responsibility and boldness.

I see a rebranded image of nursing — one where nurses are known for more than giving injections and carrying out procedures.

I want to see nurses recognised as builders of solutions, organisations and multinational businesses.

What stops a nurse from building a multinational?

What stops a nurse from creating an organisation that employs thousands of people?

We need to start asking those questions.

If we develop a mindset of ownership and innovation, nurses won’t always be queuing for jobs. We can create the jobs too.

African Nurses: Finally, what are you building towards personally?

Pelumi Akinboade: One of my projections is to build a Health Maintenance Organization.

I also want to build a network of hospitals that functions as a recognizable brand across different cities.

The standard of care should be consistent. Whether you’re in one city or another, the experience should feel the same — from how staff relate to patients to the culture, customer service and quality of care.

A hospital should be a place where people don’t feel less of themselves because they are receiving care.

I want to build hospitals where people feel dignified, respected and almost at home.

That’s one of my visions, and I’m looking forward to seeing it become reality.

Conclusion

Pelumi Akinboade’s story is evidence that nurses can navigate uncharted territory, create opportunities where few existed and make a name for themselves in spaces they were never traditionally associated with.

His journey from the bedside to health insurance is not an argument for nurses to abandon clinical practice. It is a reminder that nursing can be the foundation for much more — leadership, innovation, business, strategy and ownership.