Medshield celebrates 50 years by recommitting to members
● Medshield Medical Scheme celebrates 50 years by reiterating its commitment to providing access to affordable healthcare cover to its members.
Medshield, an open medical scheme, has been paying its members’ claims consistently for half a century — successfully navigating challenges brought about by the strictly regulated and competitive environment while managing the rising medical costs experienced throughout the healthcare industry.
Since its inception the scheme has been serving various employer groups and individual members. Through consistent service excellence, compassion for its members and dependability, Medshield has earned the trust of South Africans and is one of the oldest and most highly rated medical schemes in the country.
Financial stability is a crucial element of a medical scheme. Medshield rates among the best and for the 11th consecutive year received an AA- global credit rating. The latest rating also confirmed a positive outlook status, which confirms the scheme’s ability to pay its members’ claims. Additionally, Medshield has maintained a high reserve ratio, currently about 45%, which is much higher than the statutory requirement of 25%.
Experience in healthcare funding has made Medshield reliable and dependable over the years. These are just some of the hallmarks that have defined the 50-year journey of this giant. More than 160 000 beneficiaries depend on Medshield to care for their healthcare needs and enjoy a choice of seven tailor-made options that cater for their specific healthcare needs.
Medshield lives up to its mission of providing access to affordable high-quality healthcare through sustainable partnerships. These strategic partnerships are negotiated for the wellbeing and health of the scheme’s members, providing them with access to healthcare providers nationally. To ensure that it renders an excellent service to its members, the scheme is represented throughout South Africa with regional offices for face-to-face engagements.
Robust and sophisticated technology systems, built over the past years, have ensured that the scheme offers convenient and quick payments to healthcare providers.
“Our partnerships with healthcare providers are really important to us since they are the professionals who care for our members. Thus we make healthcare provider payments three times a week and intend raising the bar in this regard even further in the future,” says Medshield’s principal officer, Dr Stanley Moloabi.
The Medshield board of trustees, appointed by the members of the scheme, directs its affairs. The success of Medshield is a result of a deliberate implementation of a wellthought-out strategy developed and overseen by the board. Proper governance is key to managing a medical scheme, which is essentially a trust fund, and the board of Medshield has dedicated a lot of effort to ensure proper governance of the scheme.
With an enterprising track record built over the past 50 years, Medshield is looking forward to strategically embracing technology advances to make the next half-century just as dynamic.
Moloabi notes that while the past was both challenging and rewarding, the future of Medshield was bright. With an unparalleled growth of 7.4% in 2017, the scheme has set clear strategic objectives integrating elements such as social media, the use of data analytics in its business decisions and a renewed focus on innovation to ensure continued growth and relevance.
Talking about Medshield’s future relevance and the next 50 years, the future of healthcare funding in South Africa is challenging but exciting. The move towards universal healthcare coverage as outlined in the National Healthcare Insurance Policy Document seems imminent.
Medshield is a member of the Board of Healthcare Funders, which advocates for inputs and rendering of expertise into how private and public healthcare sectors can work together to achieve universal healthcare coverage, thus making access to affordable healthcare a reality of all South Africans. The vision of Medshield is “caring about you towards a healthier nation” and this translates to being part of universal healthcare coverage when we celebrate the next 50 years.
Currently also serving members in Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland, Medshield is exploring further growth opportunities in the Southern African Development Community. “We are excited at the possibility of expanding our services to include more of Africa,” says Moloabi.
Medshield’s success in South Africa over the past 50 years is also thanks to a number of stakeholders and partners. “The scheme has various stakeholders whose loyalty, support and trust have been unshakeable over the years. We are thankful to the labour unions, the employer groups, the brokers, healthcare professionals, service providers and marketing partners for their unwavering support. Of all these stakeholders, the members of Medshield remain the most important.
Above all, this journey or the celebration of 50 years of success would not have been possible without the resilience and dedication of the Medshield team. Moloabi says: “The tenacity and support from our staff have been at the core of a successful journey and Medshield looks forward to the next 50 years with them.”
As a Medshield medical scheme beneficiary you have the peace of mind that our commitment is to cover and honour member benefit entitlements whenever members need to access these, which is when they are most vulnerable.
The tenacity and support from our staff have been at the core of a successful journey Dr Stanley Moloabi Medshield principal officer