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Harare Bureau
DOCTORS have increased medical consultation fees by more than 100 percent from $20 to up to $50, while specialists are now charging up to $120 from $60, threatening the existence of medical aid societies which cannot cope with the increases.
This has resulted in increased cases of patients on medical aid paying either a co-payment or incurring a shortfall after receiving treatment, affecting their access to health care.
Separate interviews conducted by our Harare Bureau yesterday showed that individual doctors were increasing tariffs without Government’s approval.
Government ordered all service providers not to increase tariffs until it imposed a uniform tariff.
Zimbabwe Medical Association chairman of the national tariff liaison committee Mr Chad Tarumbwa confirmed the increases, saying the tariffs were actually set in April.
“You will realise that very few practitioners are charging that amount because they fear that medical aid societies will withdrew their members to their own clinics,” he said.
Mr Tarumbwa said Zima actually wanted the general practitioners to charge $60 for the first visit and then $40 for a review.
He claimed that the increases were necessitated by the increase in cost of living, but this is despite that official statistics show that inflation has remained low in the past four years, being recorded at 0,59 percent in October.
Mr Tarumbwa said the Association of Healthcare Funders of Zimbabwe (AHFoZ), an organisation for medical aid societies, wanted the tariffs to remain at $20, but that had resulted in co-payments and shortfalls because of the increase in charges.
He said all along doctors and hospitals were guided by tariffs set by Zima at $50 for consultation, while medical aid societies followed tariffs set by the AHFoz which were at $20. This meant that there was disagreement between the two bodies on the actual tariffs.
Although no official comment could be immediately obtained from AHFoZ yesterday, some medical aid societies insist that employees’ salaries were still too low to cater for an increase in tariffs.
They said they would have no choice but to increase the contributions if the doctors did not rescind the tariff increase. This would add more burden to workers are already failing to make ends meet in a country plagued by a liquidity crunch.
An official at Premier Service Medical Aid Society said the practitioners should reverse the increases.
“Charges by surgeons on procedures are exorbitant compared to other countries in the region,” said the PSMAS official. “Medical costs of sending a member outside the country, including their accommodation and flights are actually cheaper than having the procedure locally.”
Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said practitioners increasing tariffs are taking advantage of the absence of an agreed tariff.
Of late, medical aid societies and service providers were failing to come up with a common tariff that ensures people on medical aid access treatment without paying a co-payment or a shortfall.
The parties failed to agree with service providers proposing a hike, while healthcare funders maintained that current tariffs were still high. Dr Parirenyatwa said the new tariffs would be gazetted soon.
“A lot of work with regards to medical tariffs has been done already and very soon we would be gazetting the new tariffs,” he said.
“Once gazetted, the tariffs will be legally binding and we expect everyone to comply.”
Dr Parirenyatwa dismissed fears that medical aid societies currently struggling to survive because of the already high medical costs could collapse once tariffs were increased.
“The gazetted tariffs will be based on striking a balance between medical aid societies and service providers,” he said. “They were also reached after wide consultations between both parties.”
Online Reporter