BONITAS MEDICAL FUND
Healthcare to Live Your Best Life
Making the most of your medical plans
he vast majority of businesses in South Africa are required to be extremely agile when it comes to adapting to a changing environment, and the healthcare industry is no exception to this rule.
Having just entered its 36th year in the healthcare industry, Bonitas Medical Fund is a great success story. The Scheme has evolved over the years from an initial membership base that was comprised exclusively of black civil servants, to the open medical scheme it is today.
“The important change to an openscheme occurred in 1995 and since that point we have gone from strengthto-strength,” explains Gerhard van Emmenis, Principal Officer at Bonitas Medical Fund. “We are currently the second largest open scheme in South Africa and cover more than 700,000 lives.
“Although our Scheme has grown in terms of numbers, we have also developed to progressively offer innovative benefits to our members to ensure that healthcare is both more affordable and accessible for all.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the private healthcare sector at present is the rising costs surrounding it, and subsequently medical schemes need to be proactive in curtailing those fees.
“Healthcare inflation continues to outpace general inflation by approximately five percent, which we recognise is reaching a point that will endanger medical aid by making it prohibitively expensive for the public,” continues Van Emmenis. “We cannot simply say that this is not our fault or our problem, instead we need to constantly be looking for different methods in order to contain the costs as much as possible.”
“The healthcare industry is an increasingly complex entity, while also being increasingly competitive. We have witnessed negative growth for the industry in recent years primarily due to healthcare inflation escalations. This has subsequently created a cutthroat environment in which we
Although our Scheme has grown in terms of numbers, we have also developed to progressively offer innovative benefits to our members to ensure that healthcare is both more affordable and accessible for all