Organisation : CMS Council For Medical Scheme
Facility Name : Prescribed Minimum Benefit
Applicable For : All Medical Scheme Members
Country : South Africa
Website : https://www.medicalschemes.co.za/resources/pmb/
What is Prescribed Minimum Benefit?
Prescribed Minimum Benefits (PMBs) are a set of defined benefits to ensure that all medical scheme members have access to certain minimum health services, regardless of the benefit option they have selected. The aim is to provide people with continuous care to improve their health and well-being and to make healthcare more affordable.
Related / Similar Facility : CMS Submit Complaint Online
Features of Prescribed Minimum Benefit
Prescribed Minimum Benefits are a feature of the Medical Schemes Act, in terms of which medical schemes have to cover the costs related to the diagnosis, treatment and care of:
** Any emergency medical condition;
** A limited set of 271 medical conditions (defined in the Diagnosis Treatment Pairs); and
** 26 chronic conditions (defined in the Chronic Disease List).
When deciding whether a condition is a PMB, the doctor should only look at the symptoms and not at any other factors, such as how the injury or condition was contracted. This approach is called diagnosis-based. Once the diagnosis has been made, the appropriate treatment and care is decided upon as well as where the patient should receive the treatment (at a hospital, as an outpatient or at a doctor’s rooms).
Objectives of Prescribed Minimum Benefit
There are two main reasons why PMBs were created:
** To ensure that medical scheme beneficiaries have continuous healthcare. This means that even if a member’s benefits for a year have run out, the medical scheme has to pay for the treatment of PMB conditions; and
** To ensure that healthcare is paid for by the correct parties. Medical scheme members with Prescribed Minimum Benefit conditions are entitled to the specified treatments and these have to be covered by their medical scheme, even if the patients were treated at a state hospital.
But there are other valid reasons too:
** To provide minimum healthcare to everybody who needs it, regardless of their age, state of health or the medical scheme cover option they belong to;
** PMBs have a part to play in ensuring that medical schemes remain financially healthy. When beneficiaries receive good care on an ongoing basis, their general wellness improves, resulting in fewer serious conditions that are expensive to treat;
** And to ensure that healthcare is paid for by the correct parties. Medical scheme members with PMB conditions are entitled to the specified treatments and these have to be covered by their medical scheme, even if the patients were treated at a state hospital.
Conditions Covered
The Regulations to the Medical Schemes Act in Annexure A provide a long list of conditions identified as Prescribed Minimum Benefits. The list is in the form of Diagnosis and Treatment Pairs (DTPs).
A DTP links a specific diagnosis to a treatment and therefore broadly indicates how each of the approximately 271 PMB conditions should be treated. The treatment and care of PMB conditions should be based on healthcare that has proven to work best, taking affordability into consideration. Should there be a disagreement about the treatment of a specific case, the standards (also called practice and protocols) in force in the public sector will be applied.
The treatment and care of some of the conditions included in the DTP may include chronic medicine, e.g. HIV-infection and menopausal management. In these cases, the public sector protocols will also apply to the chronic medication.
Emergency Medical Condition
An emergency medical condition means the sudden and, at the time, unexpected onset of a health condition that requires immediate medical treatment and/or an operation. If the treatment is not available, the emergency could result in weakened bodily functions, serious and lasting damage to organs, limbs or other body parts, or even death.
In an emergency it is not always possible to diagnose the condition before admitting the patient for treatment. However, if doctors suspect that the patient suffers from a condition that is covered by PMBs, the medical scheme has to approve treatment. Schemes may request that the diagnosis be confirmed with supporting evidence within a reasonable period of time.