Financial ruin threatens some medical practitioners as the largest company handling Compensation Fund claims has suspended its pre-funding services because of the fund’s failure to make payments. Business Day reports that CompSol's temporary withdrawal of its prepayment services means the medical practitioners including doctors, radiographers and occupational therapists who are among its clients, will have to wait a long time for payment for their services provided to injured or ill workers. CompSol handles 40%-60% of all medical claims against the fund.
Some medical practitioners concentrate solely on occupational cases and will be hit hard by the company's decision not to pay them in advance of the fund paying out the compensation. And South African Medical Association chair Mzusiki Grootboom said medical practitioners were already refusing to attend to "injured-on-duty" cases. This would force injured workers to go to overburdened state hospitals. "Despite promises of improvement, the Compensation Fund's payment system has ground to a halt," Grootboom said.
The medical association and Solidarity trade union have submitted complaints to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela.
Labour Department director-general, Thobile Lamati gave the assurance to MPs last month that a backlog of 231,000 outstanding claims, totalling about R23bn, would be cleared by the end of June. However, CompSol MD Fritz Luttich told clients in a letter last week that the Umehluko computer system "has virtually ground to a halt due to its dysfunctionality and incapacity to process and pay the volume of claims and medical accounts in SA". The poor turnaround times in claim adjudication and payment had persisted for the past nine months, Luttich said.
[link url="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/05/12/claims-firm-stops-prepaying-doctors"]Full Business Day report[/link]