BizHealth 4 Jan 2022
"The HFA represents more than two thirds of all medical scheme members in South Africa.
This comes at the back of Pathcare agreeing this week to drop the price of its Covid-19 PCR tests in line with the Competition Commission's recommendations, a positive step in the wake of the Commission's earlier announcement that Ampath and Lancet Laboratories had agreed to substantially reduce the price of their Covid-19 PCR tests.
The agreement with the leading private laboratories follows on from the Council for Medical Schemes' (CMS') complaint lodged with the Commission on 8 October this year, alleging that private laboratories were charging between R850 to R900 for a Covid-19-test and that these prices were exorbitant and unjustifiable.
It said the excessive price for Covid-19 PCR tests was in contravention of Section 8(1)(a) of the Competition Act read with paragraph 4 of the Regulations.
Gains under scrutiny
Dr Sipho Kabane, chief executive and registrar of the CMS said: “The CMS’ Industry Report revealed that specialist services linked to the pathology discipline experienced an increase which amounted to R11.6bn in 2020, representing a gain of 10.88% from R10.5bn in 2019, despite a 3.81% overall decrease in the industry.”
Commenting on the week's developments, Ms Lerato Mosiah, CEO of The Health Funders Association (HFA) said: “We are grateful to the Competition Commissioner for stepping in. We believe that the Covid-19 pandemic calls for the entire health industry to work together in minimising both the human and financial impact of this unprecedented time.""
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