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Johannesburg - The regulation of soaring healthcare costs in the private healthcare sector was applauded by the Board of Healthcare Funders on Tuesday.
A tariff negotiation framework would address the uncertainty around healthcare and unfairly escalated prices, the board's spokesperson Heidi Kruger said in a statement.
The board said hospital costs increased 75% over the last 10 years, with specialists charging 60% more than they should be.
This year, claims to medical schemes outweighed member contributions by R2.5bn.
The private healthcare sector's participation in the new framework was voluntary, but the board said it was a good precursor to the establishment of a formal framework for price decisions.
"A tariff negotiation framework essentially offers the industry the promise of the opportunity to self-regulate again."
Kruger said the tariff negotiation framework introduced by the government was a good first step towards the proposed national health insurance.
"There has been a long history of imbalanced and problematic price determination in the private health care sector and various other recent developments have exacerbated the disarray.
"The scrapping of the reference price list (RPL) in July has left the industry with no RPL for 2011," said Kruger.
There was further concern the Health Professions Council of South Africa scrapped the ethical price list, which set the ceiling amount providers could charge.
The prescribed minimum benefit (PMB) task team had not reached a conclusion on the controversial "pay in full" clause in the PMB regulations.
“The PMBs are especially problematic for the funding industry... .This is because they are oriented towards high-cost interventions... .There is no cap on charges for these conditions, so healthcare providers may charge what they choose and be reimbursed by schemes in full," she said.
A tariff negotiation framework would address the uncertainty around healthcare and unfairly escalated prices, the board's spokesperson Heidi Kruger said in a statement.
The board said hospital costs increased 75% over the last 10 years, with specialists charging 60% more than they should be.
This year, claims to medical schemes outweighed member contributions by R2.5bn.
The private healthcare sector's participation in the new framework was voluntary, but the board said it was a good precursor to the establishment of a formal framework for price decisions.
"A tariff negotiation framework essentially offers the industry the promise of the opportunity to self-regulate again."
Kruger said the tariff negotiation framework introduced by the government was a good first step towards the proposed national health insurance.
"There has been a long history of imbalanced and problematic price determination in the private health care sector and various other recent developments have exacerbated the disarray.
"The scrapping of the reference price list (RPL) in July has left the industry with no RPL for 2011," said Kruger.
There was further concern the Health Professions Council of South Africa scrapped the ethical price list, which set the ceiling amount providers could charge.
The prescribed minimum benefit (PMB) task team had not reached a conclusion on the controversial "pay in full" clause in the PMB regulations.
“The PMBs are especially problematic for the funding industry... .This is because they are oriented towards high-cost interventions... .There is no cap on charges for these conditions, so healthcare providers may charge what they choose and be reimbursed by schemes in full," she said.
