The Consumer Protection Act is here to stay and there’s no denying that it is going to change the way business is conducted in South Africa. Businesses need to transform the way in which they interact with consumers and to ensure that all their dealings with consumers are fair, reasonable and honest, which is a positive step forward for the medical industry, believes Sechaba Medical Solutions’ Legal Executive, Dr Vusi Memela.
Sechaba Medical Solutions put a strategy of compliance in place last year while the Act was still a Bill and has been working for several months on addressing the predicted challenges that medical administrators and medical schemes would face.“Effective risk management will require, firstly, that every employee across the organisation is attuned to how he or she could place the organisation at risk and, secondly, that a sustainable change to functional behaviour is instituted,” says Memela.
The major areas needing attention for administrators and schemes include documentation for potential and existing members; and call centre training. “In terms of the Consumer Protection Act it states that all information should be in plain language that is understandable to everyone. For administrators and schemes this would mean that all communiqué including brochures, rules and contracts need to be revised and simplified. This is going to be challenging but complying with the Act is not a choice and administrators and schemes need to embrace the change and see it as an opportunity to maintain a competitive edge and strengthen customer relations and loyalty to the scheme,” he says.
Memela believes that schemes will need to make brochures and documents available in more than one language and spend more time ensuring members are fully aware of the products and rules before contracts are signed as part of their compliance. “A further challenge is aligning with service providers who will communicate effectively with members. Administrators and schemes will be responsible for dealing with member queries and complaints regarding service providers and should therefore assign resources to ensuring service providers are complying with the Act,” says Memela.
“It’s encouraging to see that members will no longer be forced to join a scheme or policy of employer’s choice, for example, and marketing cannot be misleading, deceptive or fraudulent,” says Memela. “Cooling-off periods will also need to be investigated and customers will not be tied into contracts they deem to be unfair or dishonest. I think this will force administrators and schemes to clean up their offerings and take a good, hard look at exactly how they are representing themselves in the public arena.”
In terms of the call centre, Sechaba Medical Solutions has invested in intensive training for its call centre employees with regards to compliance. Being the voice of the scheme, these employees need to be able to accurately and simply communicate with members on all scheme matters ensuring there is comprehensive understanding on the members’ part.
According to Memela, all transactions need to be recorded for training and legal purposes and operators need to always include questions such as ‘Have I answered all your questions?’ and ‘Is there anything else you would like to ask?’ Investing in call centre training and management will be key in terms of compliance for administrators and schemes and should be made a priority.
“The objectives of the Consumer Protection Act are laudable. Empowering members through imparting understandable information is the way forward. The Act will in time assist in exposing those service providers and products really meeting the needs of the consumers and those that aren’t. It is an opportunity for administrators and schemes to streamline processes and procedures, boost operations, become accountable and ensure best business practices are being adhered to. It is in fact an exciting time and those who step up to address the initial challenges and ensure compliance will benefit in the long run,” concludes Memela.