Priciest – and losing members
DISCOVERY HEALTH: BUT TWO OF THE SCHEME’S PLANS GROW IN DOUBLE DIGITS
Classic Comprehensive has lost 35% of its members over the last five years.
The six top-end medical aid plans offered by Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) continue to lose members, with a 5% decline between the end of 2020 and the end of 2021. The number of beneficiaries on these plans – Executive, Classic Comprehensive, Essential Comprehensive, Classic Smart Comprehensive, Classic Priority, and Essential Priority – is down 6% over the same period.
Since 2017, in other words over five years, the number of members and beneficiaries on these plans are down 24% and 28% respectively.
The rate at which members are abandoning these top-end plans has been steady since 2015, with declines of between 5% and 6%.
The impact of the Covid lockdowns and the related job losses and salary cuts in 2020 meant a 10% decline in members and 12% drop in beneficiaries in that year.
These six plans had contributions in 2021 (for main members) of between R4 327 and R7 257 per month.
The largest of those six higher-end plans, Classic Comprehensive (R5 954 per main member, which includes R1 488 to the medical savings account), has lost 35% of its members over the last five years. This number has accelerated from the 30/31% level in the last few years.
Two plans – Classic Smart and Essential Smart – have seen strong double-digit growth in members and beneficiaries.
Together, these plans are up by 16% and 17% respectively. Discovery describes the proposition of the Smart plans as “the most cost-effective in-hospital cover, essential chronic medicine cover plus limited day-to-day cover if you’re willing to use providers in a specified network”.
DHMS’s two largest plans which have over 527 000 members – Classic Saver and KeyCare Plus (which is restricted to a specific income band) – have maintained their growth trend.
Shifts within the overall base of members will include new members joining DHMS, existing members upgrading or downgrading within the scheme, and members leaving the scheme altogether.
Overall, DHMS saw a 2% increase in members to 1.353 million at the end of 2021. The number of beneficiaries in the scheme was up 1% to 2.784 million.
DHMS refers to Section 33 (2) of the Medical Schemes Act and says, “each benefit plan is required to be self-supporting in terms of membership and financial performance, and be financially sound”. It notes seven of its plans did not comply at the end of 2021:
➤ Executive (Net healthcare result: R218.5 million; Net (deficit)/surplus: R200.5 million);
➤ Classic Comprehensive (Net healthcare result: R970.7 million; Net (deficit)/ surplus: R728.1 million);
➤ Classic Priority (Net healthcare result: R116.6 million; Net (deficit)/surplus: R54.3 million); Essential Comprehensive (Net healthcare result: R30.3 million; Net (deficit)/ surplus: R2.6 million);
➤ Coastal Core (Net healthcare result: R164.5 million; Net (deficit)/surplus: R30.8 million);
➤ Coastal Saver (Net healthcare result: R250 million); Net (deficit)/surplus: R133.8 million); and
➤ KeyCare Plus (Net healthcare result: R910.5 million; Net (deficit)/surplus: R356.6 million).
Classic Saver and KeyCare Plus have maintained their growth trend