Medical schemes' reserve ratios could be boosted and contribution increases softened after a Constitutional Court ruling that funds in your medical savings account should be regarded as an asset of the scheme rather than money held in trust on your behalf. The downside of the ruling, however, is that your scheme may rethink its policy on paying interest on a positive balance in your medical scheme savings account. And, should your scheme go belly-up, any funds in your personal savings account could be used to pay your scheme's creditors. The Constitutional Court ruling was made in favour of Genesis Medical Scheme after a long-running battle with the medical scheme regulator, the Council for Medical Schemes, over the Registrar of Medical Schemes' 2013 decision to reject Genesis' financial statements. Positive impact In response to the ruling, both Discovery Health Medical Scheme, the country's largest medical scheme, and another large open scheme, Momentum Health, say they expect the...
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