In 2010, the national health reference price list was declared invalid by the North Gauteng High Court. Since then, there has been no fixed guideline to follow and the latest medical tariff guidelines that have been published by the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) have created a real chaos in the entire situation.

This is something that has really annoyed the doctors and other medical staff.

As claimed by the South African Medical Association (Sama) and the SA Private Practitioners’ Forum “The new benchmark is 53% less than the 2007 HPCSA tariff, it is also 5% less than Sama’s own 2003 tariff”.

According to their study, since then, as far as the involvement of medical schemes is concerned, it has risen by 105% whereas the cost of living has increased by 55%.

This clearly states that when consumers are paying 105% more as a part of their medical scheme contributions, the doctors are forced to settle down there earnings at 5% less than that of in 2003.

As a result of this entire scenario, the ones who will suffer the most, both by doctors and their medical aid schemes are the consumers. Well, exceptions are always there.

No matter what the guidelines say, doctors will continue charging higher from the patients, and a little amount will be paid to them in form of medical aids.