Hospital insurance unhealthy

Medical schemes will pay for even less in years to come if hospital insurance products, which "undermine medical aids", are allowed to continue.

This is according to Wits University Professor Alex van den Heever, who was speaking at the Board of Healthcare Funders conference in Cape Town yesterday.

He slammed hospital insurance products, saying they did not protect consumers and threatened the stability of medical aids.

Hospital insurance is a cheap option for consumers, with some products costing a little more than R100 a month. They pay clients a few thousand rands a day if they are admitted to hospital.

Van den Heever said R4000 or even R10000 a day was not enough to cover any private hospital cost, but consumers did not understand they were buying insurance that offered limited protection.

Medical aids were more expensive than insurance products because they had to comply with the Medical Schemes Act, he said.

The Act was designed to make sure consumers who use medical aids were protected. Currently, hospital insurance is not well regulated. Insurance products can turn away risky members and refuse to cover anyone who is elderly, for example.

Medical aids must provide certain minimum benefits.

Experts at the conference called for the National Treasury to release long-awaited regulations to manage hospital insurance.