Council for Medical Schemes probed over deal with Discovery
Council’s decision ensures that Discovery will be exempt from what could be a contravention of the Medical Schemes Act
Industry insiders are questioning the decision of the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) to allow Adrian Gore's Discovery to offer medical aid products under its life assurance business, allegedly gaining an unfair advantage over competitors. This is against demarcation regulations,which state that only medical schemes can offer medical scheme products. In a communiqué seen by Business Times, the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) said it was investigating how the council had allowed Discovery's life insurance unit to continue to provide its PrimaryCare product after initially rejecting this when its medical scheme business unit applied to be allowed to do so. Discovery Health started PrimaryCare in 2012 for low-income earners with premiums starting at about R160 a month. The product currently covers more than 30,000 people. The BHF is unhappy with the exemption as it enables Discovery's insurance unit and not its medical aid arm to conduct the business of a medical scheme, which is i...
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