The Specialist Forum Volume 13 No 11 November 2013 | Page 6

SAPPF

• All descriptors, consultation fees, billing rules, procedure codes.
• All components of a fee of any kind used to establish a final fee.
• Any aspect of a fee structure that can have a behavioural effect in
incentivising unnecessary utilisation.
• Any aspect of a fee that could undermine the continued insurability
of a benefit.
The Council seems to have circumvented the contentious methodology employed in the reference price list determination by allowing
‘invited participants [to] make any submissions they wish in any format they wish to best make their case’; and ‘the specific form of the
evidence submitted is fully at the discretion of the participant’. (6.6.3)
and (6.16).
Rules of participation will accompany the invitation to participate.
Parties will only be accepted to participate in the process upon ‘signing the letter of acceptance agreeing to the rules’.
Much is made in the document of ‘impolite and offensive conduct’
which will serve as grounds for dismissal from the proceedings. Why
a common courtesy needs to be documented is unclear, unless it
implies some supra-judicial determination of what exactly constitutes
impolite conduct. Coming from a professional ethics body, this seems
redundant. What is important is the caveat that ‘parties that choose
not to participate will be regarded as having done so of their own free
will with the full knowledge of any prejudice for their constituency’.
(6.19)

SAPPF Position
SAPPF’s April submission focussed on six essential concerns regarding the determination process:
• The process and methods that the Board and its Tariff Committee
should follow in setting Guideline Tariffs:
?? Benchmark tariffs would have to be cost-based, disciplinespecific, clearly differentiated from ethical tariffs, and follow
extensive consultation).
• The appropriateness of using the 2006 NHRPL as a basis was
dismissed.
• Appropriatenes ????????????????????????
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