Delivery of core healthcare products and service could become consumer issues
Delivery of core healthcare products and service could become consumer issues
For medical schemes, predicts Medscheme
The strategic relevance of some medical schemes to the South African market could be tested in the current economic climate of rising inflation, climbing interest rates and generally increasing costs, says Medscheme, South Africa's largest multi medical scheme administrator.
The result of the present difficult times, predicts Kevin Aron, Managing Director of Medscheme Health, could be close examination by consumers of the benefits offered by schemes. This examination could be accompanied by consumer movement towards medical schemes and administrators who have historically proved to be "customer-centric" and differentiated themselves by maintaining a focus on supplying core healthcare products and services and restricting cost increases as far as possible.
Any movement, he says, would benefit scheme administrators like Medscheme, which has years of expertise in administering multiple open and closed medical schemes.
After operating in the sector for more than 30 years, Medscheme has developed a service model that concentrates on providing client unique service excellence. Each of the "open" medical scheme clients have their own cultures and philosophies and to ensure constant differentiation and uniqueness, Medscheme Health has created dedicated business units that focus on providing value for each of their client medical schemes. This includes dedicated customer service call centres, fund managers, scheme finance and management.
"All clients however, benefit from "back-end" centralised Medscheme functions where, for example, claims are assessed and processed and specialised legal and information technology resources work for all the Medscheme administered schemes. This means that schemes do not individually carry these costs. The direct benefits are cost savings that are in turn passed on to members. Most of the single scheme administrators simply cannot match the customer focused administrative intensity we offer," Aron said.
"The result of the multischeme model and operating efficiencies are competitive fees and lower annual increases in open schemes in many cases substantially below major individual medical schemes operating in a very competitive market," Aron continued. "Medscheme's operating model has been successfully tested and over the past 18 months, all the open schemes administered by Medscheme have shown substantial net membership growth, coupled with average contribution increases below the industry average."
Of equal importance was access to wide-ranging information and data that, taken across the Medscheme portfolio, provided accurate healthcare data and statistics. These provided unsurpassed actuarial industry analysis as a basis for future costings and product development again for the benefit of Medscheme clients, Aron said.
"We are proud of the fact that the Council for Medical Schemes has approached Medscheme with a request that we make data available to them for analytical purposes."
Aron believes that being customer-centric and delivering value means focusing on core business- the provision of medical services that provide value where it counts rather than 'add ons' that are not healthcare- based and inevitably drive up costs and membership fees. "Essentially, by offering products and services that meet consumer needs more clients will be attracted and this will again springboard into better customer support and service with volumes acting to reduce costs," says Aron.
The medical scheme industry is challenged by present economic circumstances and there is no doubt consumers will focus on core healthcare products delivered through efficient, customer-centric structures as they seek value rather than peripheral product offerings.
