Ing. Antonín Klimša, MBA spent most of his professional career in the mining industry. In 2016-2018, he was appointed Executive Director of OKD, a.s., which in 1993 was also the birthplace of the employee health insurance company Revírní bratrská pokladna. Following the successful reorganisation of OKD in 2018, he subsequently became the new CEO of the health insurance company RBP. He places great emphasis on prevention and education.
Preventive care is a prerequisite for preventing health risks. How active is the RBP health insurance company in the field of cancer?
In the area of cancer prevention, we have long focused, for example, on vaccination against human papillomaviruses; specifically, for girls and women under 30 years of age on prevention against cervical cancer, and for boys aged 12 and older on prevention against anal cancer and genital warts, for which we contribute CZK 4,000 to the insured. This was one of the reasons why at the beginning of this year, we also actively participated in the new pilot project of the National Screening Centre of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (NSC IHIS CR) for sending out tests for cervical cancer diagnosis in the home environment. In the first phase, 800 RBP clients were initially selected to receive a selfsampling kit by post with detailed instructions and information regarding which specialist laboratory they are supposed to send their sample. The aim of this project, which will reach 5,000 women, is to increase the number of women aged 50-65 years screened and, at the same time, to test the suitability of this approach. And in the list of activities, I must not forget that a few weeks ago, RBP signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Ministry of Health to improve cancer prevention, early detection of cancer and targeted screening programmes in the Czech Republic. The declaration, which was jointly signed by other health insurance companies, follows the Health 2020 project — a framework of measures for the development of public health promotion and early disease prevention in the Czech Republic.
Why should not only employees but also managers choose your insurance company?
At RBP, we pride ourselves on having a pro-client as well as a procompany approach. This means that in addition to prevention and bonus programmes for all age groups, we also implement various awareness programmes for employers. Currently, for example, we are running specialist physical training videos with a therapist focusing on sedentary jobs or excessive back strain, RBP Health Tents in which we measure and test physical fitness, vitamin fortification, or recuperation stays for demanding and risky professions, and so on. If a manager has employees concentrated mostly within one health insurance company (for example, at RBP), he will surely benefit not only in communication, but especially in their disease prevention.
Thank you for the interview
