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Private healthcare fights back

12 Sep 2011

The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) has called for price controls in the private healthcare sector and now Mediclinic and the Hospital Association of South Africa (Hasa) have criticised it and questioned the reliability of its information according to a report published by Fin24.

The CMS says in its annual report that around R31.1bn was paid to hospitals, by medical schemes. That was 37% of total medical schemes payouts. Private hospitals' portion of that, R30.8bn, rose 10%.

Moreover, it says, payments to medical specialists amounted to R18,8-billion, 12% higher than the previous year. It says there is an urgent need to regulate the tariffs of private hospitals and specialists.

Hasa chairman Dr Nkaki Matlala claims the CMS report contains faulty and unqualified assertions about the reasons for higher payments to hospitals. Mediclinic says the tariffs set by hospitals are a result of higher input costs for equipment, nurses' salaries and so forth.

It says the reason for the higher payments last year were because of a higher number of admissions and not because of higher prices.