{"id":329951,"date":"2019-07-18T07:56:26","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T05:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=329951"},"modified":"2019-07-18T07:56:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T05:56:26","slug":"big-medical-aid-changes-coming-to-south-africa-heres-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/329951\/big-medical-aid-changes-coming-to-south-africa-heres-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Big medical aid changes coming to South Africa &#8211; here&#8217;s what you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) has been <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.medicalschemes.com\/files\/Circulars\/Circular52Of2019.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tasked<\/a> <\/strong>by the Department of Health to establish a central <span class=\"st\">cache<\/span> containing all medical scheme patients in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The CMS said that this registry &#8211; called the National Beneficiary Registry &#8211; will benefit the CMS and the medical schemes industry in the following ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Membership history will be preserved as one Beneficiary ID number will be allocated to a member for life. This Beneficiary ID number is computed using a variable amount of data about the member, thereby creating a unique identifier for each beneficiary;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Verification of membership status of patients that have medical aid cover, visiting state facilities;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Demographic reporting which will aid in health planning;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Improved and direct communication with members;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Data verification and quality improvement by schemes and administrators;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Monitoring of membership behaviour over time;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Future linkage to the NHI Health Patient Registration System (HPRS).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The circular does not indicate when the new registry will be officially introduced, however, it has called on medical schemes to take part in a pilot programme later this year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The National Health Insurance\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While the circular indicates that the registry will be tied into the NHI Health Patient Registration System at a later date, the government said that it has already begun enrolling South Africans for the incoming National Health Insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Presenting his departmental budget on Friday (12 July), minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize said that his department has already <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/328793\/you-may-have-already-been-signed-up-on-the-new-nhi-registry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">enrolled<\/a> <\/strong>more than 42 million South Africans in the Health Patient Registration System.<\/p>\n<p>Mkhize said that this system was developed for the implementation of the NHI and will act as a \u2018backbone of an electronic health patient record\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have already registered 42.6 million users on the system and all South Africans will be registered by the end of this financial year,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We support the Department of Home Affairs in the registration of babies in our hospitals, as they will then be registered automatically on the NHI patient register.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;NHI will require a digital health platform that will support the operations of the NHI Fund and work has already commenced in this regard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While the updated NHI bill has not been made available for public comment, the Department of Health has previously <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/296842\/how-the-nhi-will-change-your-medical-aid-contributions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">indicated<\/a> <\/strong>that everyone that can afford to do so will be liable to contribute towards the NHI Fund.<\/p>\n<p>These contributions to the NHI Fund would be in addition to any medical aid scheme premiums if individuals should choose to remain members of a private scheme.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/329775\/these-are-the-20-best-hospitals-in-south-africa-according-to-discovery-members\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">These are the 20 best hospitals in South Africa according to Discovery members<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) has been tasked by the Department of Health with establishing a central repository containing all medical scheme patients in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":96741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-329951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329951"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329993,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329951\/revisions\/329993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}