A NEW report offers the first glimpse on the health of the open medical schemes market after the Council for Medical Schemes was forced to delay publishing its annual report. Global Credit Ratings (GCR) has released a report based on SA’s 11 biggest open medical schemes, which account for about 90% of the market segment. The council’s annual report provides extensive data on the entire medical schemes industry, but it cannot be released until it has resolved a dispute with medical scheme Commed over its financial statements. GCR’s report found that the schemes it reviewed were on a sound financial footing, despite reporting a R400m operating loss. This was cushioned by their deep financial reserves. Investments and other income came to R1.7bn, to give the schemes a collective net surplus of R1.2bn. Contribution income totalled R85.7bn, up on the previous year’s R78.7bn. Schemes had reported a net health-care loss because of higher-than-anticipated claims, driven by increased benefit...
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