Market segmentation analyses suggest that medical scheme beneficiaries in South Africa are confused by too many benefit options; that choice sets facing different beneficiaries are not the same; and that information is not equally accessible.
Researchers at the Council for Medical Schemes and the department of economics, University of Pretoria write in the SA Health Review that a salient finding of the Competition Commission’s Health Market Inquiry Provisional Report on the functioning of the health market is that there is a lack of transparency for medical scheme beneficiaries, particularly in matters pertaining to medical scheme benefit options. Inefficiencies in the health market, such as unequal or incomplete information, are likely to impact premiums and lead to sub-optimal decisions by consumers when considering their options…..more