Balance billing - It is time medical schemes accept it, it's legal!

Abstract

The South African Dental Association views the issue of balance billing seriously and highlights its stance on the matter in its latest communication to the Council of Medical Schemes. The contents of the communication which lays out concerns and their view are laid below:

1. We wrote this to the CMS on behalf of our members who are dentists and dental specialists operating in the private sector.
2. In the present environment, one of the biggest challenges facing dentists as healthcare practitioners is balancing their professional obligations to serve the
commercial demands of dental practice. Every profession always includes elements of both altruism and self-inteest, of service to others and service to self, of professionalism and commercialism. No profession ever finds an ideal balance of these elements.
3. Currently, one of the major issues that face healthcare practitioners directly is the setting and collection of fees.
4. The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) which regulates the dental profession does permit practitioners to balance bill their patients.
However, some of the bigger schemes are refusing to accept balance bills from providers of service to their members