LIBERTY Health continues to grow locally and is making significant strides towards being the leading Pan-African health insurance company, according to its CEO Peter Botha.
He explains that the company is focused on providing innovative and cost effective healthcare solutions through investment in technology-based administration capabilities, solid back-office support for front-office services and strategic partnerships with leading medical schemes.
"With a firm footprint in South Africa, we provide systems and administration support to scheme clients, with more than a million lives. We do so through wholly-owned technology and administration affiliates, Neil Harvey and Associates and V-Med."
The affiliates, he says, give Liberty Health a unique advantage in the healthcare industry by providing in-house technology-enabled administration capabilities.
This makes it possible to provide simple and cost effective solutions for the administration and support of medical schemes.
He elaborates, "Our technology-enabled administrative system allows for the provision of superior and cost effective support to clients. This strengthens our offering of efficient scheme and member administration. And, in turn, empowers members and intermediaries by enabling the scheme to provide them with self-service system capabilities that are easy to customise for individual use."
Botha reports that over the past year, Liberty has successfully taken on the administration of Liberty Medical Scheme, Medicover and Spectramed.
These are key milestones in a strategic move towards the consolidation of scheme administration, translating into significant cutting of costs, greater uniformity and efficiencies.
They also minimise the risk to schemes the company has taken on board.
He says, "We have a substantial presence in South Africa and over the past 12 months we have experienced steady growth in the number of members and dependent lives receiving administration and IT services.
"This growth gives us the economies of scale that are key to success in medical scheme administration.
"Our strategic alliances and partnerships bring value for both our members and the industry as a whole. "Our partnership model allows us to bring the best of health management solutions to our clients."
Liberty, he adds, remains committed to strategic investments in technology.
The company acquired NHA in the second half of 2008 to provide the technology needed to support the company's target operating model and growth strategy.
It is the largest independent technology vendor in Africa and also serves as the administrative backbone to V-Med, an accredited administrator based in Cape Town.
"V-Med offers a unique and comprehensive administration support system using world class communications technology.
"The model is based on full back-office functionality and concentrated client-facing front-office functionality through which an integrated approach to administration and managed care services is provided to the client.
"This provides back-office efficiencies through scale and improved customer service through focused front-offices," says Botha.
Loraine Tulleken: Business Report, 28 May 2010
