THE health of the medical schemes industry took a further knock in 2015 as it reported a net operating loss of R1.219bn, according to the Council for Medical Schemes’ (CMS’s) annual report, which was finally tabled in Parliament on Friday. It is an important document because it is the most detailed publicly available source of data on medical schemes and is used by analysts, administrators and schemes to benchmark performance. It also provides key information on trends, which assists the CMS in its statutory role of regulating of the sector and safeguarding consumers’ interests. The industry’s net healthcare result is a deterioration on the R456m deficit reported in 2014 and the R1.55bn surplus of 2013, and is part of the reason why many schemes are implementing double-digit premium hikes in 2017. Discovery Health Medical Scheme, SA’s biggest open medical scheme, will hike its rates for 2017 by a weighted average of 10.2%, while Bonitas will raise premiums 11.9% across the board. Th...
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