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Fedhealth announces a single digit premium increase. Fedhealth – one of the country’s largest remaining independent medical schemes - has announced that their premium increase for 2007 will be an average of 9.8%.

According to Fedhealth CEO Jeremy Yatt, the increase is in line with the medical inflation figures released by Statistics SA. In terms of the medical inflation basket Yatt explains that there are numerous contributors, including the increased awareness of health issues, medical technology which introduces new but more expensive procedures and treatments, and lifestyles that are tending to create more chronic conditions, and generally the medical inflation figures are nearly double than CPIX. Schemes that announce lower-than-medical-inflation premium increases have done this by reducing the benefits that members have access to, usually driven by the need to maintain profitability and meet the requirements of their shareholders. Yatt says that members and employers have to ensure that they know exactly where they stand in these schemes, in terms of benefit coverage and that they are not buying something that is simply a mechanism to sell them something else. Schemes that don’t have shareholders profit incentives to worry about are in a more fortunate position in that the trustees can ensure that benefits are retained and increases are based on cost pressures and not profit imperatives.Contact Details:Name:  Angelo CoppolaEmail: angelo@channelcom.co.zaChannelcom.co.za