eBusiness Weekly
Tawanda Musarurwa
Business-to-business (B2B) arrangements will help resolve the disparities between what medical aid societies are offering to pay and what health services providers have been demanding, an industry player has said.
The lack of common ground between medical aid firms and health service providers, has resulted in an increase in shortfalls that have placed sick people at high risk.
With the Zimbabwe dollar continually depreciating against the United States dollar, (and with most pharmacies indexing the prices of their medicines to the parallel market foreign currency rates) the resultant shortfalls have become deterrent.
Cimas CEO Vulindlela Lester Ndlovu, said the problem needs to be dealt with at a business level, and not through regulations.
“The problem of the high cost of medical aid and the resultant shortfalls is due to the lack of a common tariff between service providers and medical aid firms. But as Cimas, we don’t believe that there should be an agreed price, because that is tantamount to collusion,” he said.
“At the end of the day, medical aid firms and the health service providers should be operating on a B2B arrangement. Let’s strengthen business-to-business ties.”
A business-to-business arrangement is an agreement between two or more parties, and can either be really simple or extremely complex.
But critically, it is also legally binding.
Zimbabwe’s health funders have maintained that the shortfalls are a result of the pricing structure insofar as health service providers are pegging their charges to the US dollar (and at the parallel market exchange rate) when medical aid members are paying subscriptions in the weaker Zimbabwe dollar, resulting in a significant mismatch.
Currently, the pricing of health services is guided by a 2014 Government Gazette, which pegged consultation fees for general practitioners at US$35 a visit and around US$70 for specialists.
But as indicated previously, rating these prices according to the Zimbabwe dollar-US dollar exchange rate has been the major source of the problem.
Said the Association of Healthcare Funders of Zimbabwe (AHFoZ) earlier this year:
“AHFoZ rates seem to be chasing a moving target, a chase which is neither practical nor sustainable. AHFoZ rates are funded from member contributions.
“Members’ salaries have not been going up. Most employer organisations are reluctant to increase employment costs and are unwilling to increase medical aid contributions, given the myriad of challenges that the employers are facing.
“The contribution increases that have been effected by medical aid societies are not benchmarked on the US dollar and are still nowhere near the fees being charged by service providers.”
The health funders are concerned that in view of the prevailing economic climate, further increases of subscriptions could push many members who perceive themselves to be in good health to dump medical aid.
