{"id":877584,"date":"2026-09-30T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=877584"},"modified":"2026-09-30T12:49:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T10:49:57","slug":"momentum-health-announces-price-hikes-for-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/877584\/momentum-health-announces-price-hikes-for-2027\/","title":{"rendered":"Momentum Health announces medical aid price increases for 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Momentum Health has announced a 7.9% average annual contribution increase for its medical aid scheme, broadly in line with the Council for Medical Schemes’ (CMS) recommendation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the CMS’s latest medical scheme industry report (end-2024 data), Momentum Medical Scheme is the country’s third-largest open scheme, and the fifth-largest overall with over 285,000 beneficiaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The medical aid scheme said the annual increase comes as the healthcare industry faces continued pressure and rising delivery costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Momentum said the 7.9% increase “reflects the rising cost of healthcare delivery and the need to sustain meaningful benefits in a system under increasing pressure.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 2019 and 2024, South Africa’s medical aid scheme market contracted by 3%, with the average age of members increasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2019, the average age of medical scheme members has risen from 35 to 37, as fewer young South Africans have opted into the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Momentum said this trend “signals mounting pressure on the affordability and long-term sustainability of private healthcare.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“With wage inflation under pressure and healthcare costs continuing to rise, Momentum has reviewed the product for 2027 to ensure long-term sustainability while responding to changing member needs,” the group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa has seen high inflation and a rising cost of living in recent months, driven by pressure from high global oil prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with the annual increase, Momentum said it has made several changes to its benefits, including replacing COVID-19-related screenings with over-the-counter benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As part of our 2027 enhancements, we have increased specialist benefit limits, replaced underutilised COVID-19 screening benefits with an over-the-counter pharmacy medicine benefit, and introduced a third GP benefit tier,” Momentum Health CMO Damian McHugh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier in September, the CMS published its medical aid contribution increase guidelines for 2027, which indicated that schemes should anchor price hikes by 3.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this anchor serves as a basis for an increase relative to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), it does not factor in “reasonable utilisation estimates”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) said that the CMS not indicating what “reasonable utilisation” is could place unrealistic expectations on medical aid schemes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on historical data on medical aid price increases, a “reasonable” increase could be between 5.8% and 7.3%, but more recent medical inflation rates have pushed this higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High increases expected<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While Momentum’s annual 7.9% annual increase exceeded the range determined from historical data, global advisory group WTW projected medical aid costs to increase by 10.3% globally in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WTW also projected these increases to be closer to 11.3% for the Middle East and Africa regions in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These projections are based on a survey of 91 countries, which identifies factors, including new medical technologies, pharmaceuticals, utilisation, fraud, waste and abuse, and pressures affecting medical costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These projections would place Momentum Health’s increase within normal global expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CMS also said in an evaluation that there is an industry-wide, overall weighted contribution increase assumption of 8.10%, which is higher than Momentum’s increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McHugh said the group’s price increases were determined in a difficult environment and had to balance the rising cost of living and growing pressure in the medical sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our 2027 offering reflects a careful balance between affordability, innovation and meaningful cover,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also noted that the largest expense for medical aid schemes was hospital cover, indicating a greater need for early prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hospitalisation remains the largest area of expenditure in the medical scheme market, which is why prevention and early intervention cannot be treated as optional extras,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A sustainable healthcare model must help people act before a health concern becomes a more serious, and often more expensive, event.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Momentum Health has announced a hefty annual increase for its medical aid schemes in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":862875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2105251571793539410","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2221657431987989","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18109195853232558","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[13522,24251,11637],"class_list":["post-877584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-council-for-medical-schemes","tag-damian-mchugh","tag-momentum-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877584","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=877584"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877635,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877584\/revisions\/877635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}