Substantial Momentum Health Fee Hike in 2017
Momentum Health, a division of MMI Group, has joined Discovery Health in hiking its fees in 2017 – by an average of 11%.
The country’s biggest open market medical aid scheme, Discovery Health, announced earlier this month that it is raising its prices by an average of 10.2% next year.
According to Momentum, fees will increase by 8.9% to 15.0% across its products next year, while it plans to introduce tighter restrictions on benefits.
Like Discovery, Momentum has felt the impact of a strained year for the entire medical aid and medical services industry, where it experienced an increase in claims, as more and more people signed up for private healthcare.
Discovery has attributed the rise in claims to more people being admitted to hospitals, using more scheme benefits, abuse, fraud and wastage. This has prompted the business to tighten its policies, and possibly reduce benefits or hospitals available on its network.
Momentum and Discovery are not alone, however, and other medical aid schemes are expected to also follow suit with double-digit hikes for 2017.
Earlier in 2016, the Council for Medical Schemes set a guideline that schemes should try to contain their increases to inflation plus three percentage points.