BusinessLive reports that, with fewer employed workers contributing to medical schemes, the schemes’ poor performance has put pressure on payments made to providers such as Life Healthcare.  

Gryphon Asset Managers analyst Casperus Treunicht explained that pressure in formal employment was negatively affecting medical schemes, which in turn reduced payments from the insured pool to healthcare providers.  "We know that Discovery and Bonitas are doing this and now we are also hearing rumours coming from the GEMS [Government Employees Medical Scheme]," he indicated.  Council of Medical Schemes data show there was a 0.06% decrease in the number of beneficiaries in schemes between 2014 and 2015.  In the same period, scheme expenditure on private hospitals increased 9.36%.

• A short report by Michelle Gumede is at BusinessLive

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