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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
MEDICAL
CHRONICLE
The Doctor’s Newspaper
Established 1965
20.1
Tariffs
4
20.13
www.medicalchronicle.co.za
Back to the drawing board
The beleaguered process to
establish a guideline tariff list for
healthcare providers has yet again
stumbled to a halt after the HPCSA
published a new proposed process
for what it termed ‘the determination
of a set of fees that can be used as a
norm or benchmark for what could be
regarded as reasonable for both the
healthcare provider and the patient’.
The notice was published almost
exactly a year after the council was
forced to withdraw its guideline tariff
list published as a replacement for the
abolished Reference Price List, following the profession’s outcry over the
lack of consultation before the publication of the fees. The process was then
started afresh with an invitation to all
interested parties to present submission to the HPCSA before the end of
February this year. More than 80 submissions were received from a range
of interested parties, including medical and dental practitioners, funders,
consumer organisations, professional
bodies and the Competition Commission. This was followed by a roadshow
organised by the HPCSA in Durban,
Johannesburg, East London and Cape
Town during which the submissions
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were presented to
interested parties
for comment and
consultation with
indications that a
new tariff list based
on the outcome of
these consultations
would be published
for 2014 before the
end of the year.
However, at the
end of last month, the
Medical and Dental Board published
a notice on the HPCSA’s website
asking for interested parties to
submit substantiated comments or
representations in writing on a new
proposed process that is hoped to
culminate in the Professional Board
publishing the ‘fee norms’ for 2014
only in May next year, after which the
2015 fee-norm process will start.
The board said that after
considering the inputs from the
consultation process thus far, it has
decided to implement a process that
will involve direct participation of
stakeholders in deliberations aimed
at achieving a broad consensus on
a fair and reasonable tariff
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PULL-OUT
Pain Guide
29
pg
Wound
care
Biofilm-based
management pg
47
pg58
Earn
6 CPD points
Continued on page 3
Table 1
Timelines for determination of fee norms for 2014
November 2013
Stakeholders’ preparation of comment on proposed
fee norm process for 2014.
December 2013
Tariff Committee engages with submissions and
consults affected parties.
Jan/Feb 2014
Tariff Committee recommends fee norms to
Professional Board and Professional Board considers
recommendations and gazettes the 2014 norms for
public comment.
March 2014
Public preparation of comments.
April 2014
Tariff Committee engages with public comments
on gazetted proposed tariffs and makes
recommendations to Professional Board.
May 2014
Professional Board publishes Fee norms for 2014 and
2015 fee norm process starts.
PRACTICE MANAGEMENT on page 61, OPINION on page 62, EVENTS on page 64, NEW PRODUCTS on page 66, TREASURE HUNT on page 67