Costs are rising: this is how much more you’ll be paying in 2022

Despite recommendations from the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) to limit increases to 4.2%, most medical schemes have announced higher contribution increases for the 2022 year.

Some schemes have chosen to defer contribution increases by several months and even up to September 2022 in a bid to offer members some relief.

Jill Larkan, head of healthcare consulting at GTC, says schemes have previously typically exceeded the CMS increase guidelines by around 4%. She said she had anticipated that this year’s increases would be in line with the CMS recommendations based on consumers’ financial constraints, record reserves held by the medical schemes (R73.29-billion) and lower-than-usual usage of scheme benefits over the past two years.

Larkan said that if vaccinations and infections combined to confer herd immunity on the population, members could flock back to doctors to catch up on delayed procedures and treat conditions that may have worsened after a year of delayed care.

The CMS is confident that medical schemes with adequate reserves should be “well insulated” against such a spike.

The CMS guidelines include a specific warning for medical schemes whose financial sustainability was already questionable pre-pandemic, advising them to consider “interventions such as amalgamating with other schemes”.

Discovery Health has chosen to defer increases for the second year in a row, with an average contribution increase of 7.9% kicking in from 1 May next year. The scheme maintains that the increase is in line with medical inflation, estimated at 7.9% for 2022 and that a lower increase will place the scheme’s sustainability at risk.

Momentum Medical Scheme has also chosen to defer increases and the scheme’s average contribution increase of 6% will kick in from 1 September next year.

The average contribution increase Bonitas announced for 2022 is 4.8% with the premium for the lower-end Bonstart option actually decreasing by 7.9%.

“We feel that the use of part of our reserves to cushion members against increasing costs is an appropriate strategy,” says Lee Callakoppen, principal officer of Bonitas.

Fedhealth followed suit by deferring contribution increases to April next year and will be using R105-million of its reserves to fund the difference. Jeremy Yatt, its principal officer, says members face a 5.5% annualised increase next year and the scheme does not foresee any double-digit average increase for any benefit option.

Bestmed has managed to keep its 2022 increase to 3.9% across all options.