PROFFESSA Health Services

With all the latest debate and concern around the Protection of State Information Bill, it is not surprising that a fair amount of uncertainty has arisen around the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) Manual.  The act was promulgated in 2000 to bring into effect the constitutional right of access to any information held by the state and any information that is held by private bodies (this includes sole practitioners) which is required for the exercise or protection of any rights.  Section 9 of the act does however recognise that access to information can be limited.  These limitations are…

Prescribed Minimum Benefits (PMBs) must be paid in full. This was the ruling handed down this morning by the Gauteng High Court after the Board of Health Care Funders of Southern Africa (BHF) and the South African Municipal Workers’ Union National Medical Scheme approached the court asking for a declaratory order on the interpretation of the words ‘pay in full’ as in appears in Regulation 8 of the Medical Schemes Act. BHF sought to convince the court that ‘pay in full’ should be interpreted as meaning ‘pay in full according to the rules of the medical scheme’ and not ‘pay…