SAPA

THE Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has urged medical practitioners to charge above medical aid rates only with patient consent. It was commenting after talks with the Society for General and Family Practitioners (SGFP) and the National Convention on Dispensing (NCD). HPCSA registrar Boyce Mkhize said the Council used the National Health Reference Price List as a norm simply because this was the rate at which medical aids reimbursed their patients, which did not amount to making a value judgment on its adequacy. Although it had set an ethical tariff as a milestone in determining when patients were overcharged, this tariff should not be regarded as a target at which the fees should be set. As was the case in any profession, medical practitioners could set fees at rates they could justify with patients, taking into account their experience, skills and qualifications, the Council said. Mkhize said the HPCSA did not want to get into "the muddy waters of tariff setting" and encouraged studies that would broadly reflect the fair and reasonable rate at which healthcare practitioners should charge patients.