Patients to have little say

2003-07-17 10:04

Antoinette Pienaar

Johannesburg - The days that a doctor treated families from one generation to another and the medical aid paid without any problem, could be something of the past in the very near future.

There's a possibility that general practitioners who do not become part of the 6% who either become business people or leave for greener pastures, may in future only treat patients on medical aids they have entered into an agreement with.

Doctor Hennie Duvenage, executive head of the doctor network called GP Net, told the annual congress of the Council of Health Care Financiers held in Durban that he estimated that at least 50% of their members would be forced to make use of preferential suppliers to be able to afford membership.

About 250 000 of the country's seven million medical aid beneficiaries are being treated by preferential suppliers. They are those with the most affordable plans. Medical aids enter into agreements with doctor networks to cut costs.

Duvenage says only a few people will be able to afford a "walk in service" at a doctor's rooms of their choice. There's a process in the offing where medical aids are going to try to offer the same services with the same money.

"Medical aid members won't have a choice which hospitals they can go to or what specialists they wish to consult and contributions will soar even more. They will have to take even more responsibility for their health care."

Barry Swartzberg, managing director of Discovery Health, said as long as new medical aid fund members were informed properly of all the choices they have when they choose a health plan, he didn't think it would curb a patient's right to choose.

Duvenage said the use of preferential providers was perhaps one of the few ways to stop the system of compulsory minimum benefits, which all funds have to introduce next year, from wrecking the industry financially.

- Beeld