WHAT ARE PMB'S?
Prescribed Minimum Benefits (PMBs) are a set of defined benefits to ensure that all medical scheme members have access to certain minimum health services, regardless of the benefit option they have selected. The aim is to provide people with continuous care to improve their health and well-being.
PMBs are a feature of the Medical Schemes Act, in terms of which medical schemes have to cover the costs related to the diagnosis, treatment and care of:
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any emergency medical condition;
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a limited set of 270 medical conditions (defined in the Diagnosis Treatment Pairs); and
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26 chronic conditions
WHAT IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY?
An emergency medical condition means the sudden and, at the time, unexpected onset of a health condition that requires immediate medical treatment and/or an operation.
If the treatment is not available, the emergency could result in weakened bodily functions, serious and lasting damage to organs, limbs or other body parts, or even death
WHAT IS A DESIGNATED SERVICE PROVIDER [DSP]?
A Designated Service Provider (DSP) is a healthcare provider (doctor, pharmacist, hospital, etc) that is a medical scheme’s first choice when its members need diagnosis, treatment or care for a PMB condition.
If you choose not to use the DSP selected by Sizwe, you may have to pay a portion of the bill as a co-payment. This could either be a percentage co-payment or the difference between the DSP’s tariff and that charged by the provider you went to.
Annexure A of the Medical Schemes Act provides a long list of conditions identified as Prescribed Minimum Benefits. The list is in the form of Diagnosis and Treatment Pairs (DTPs). A DTP links a specific diagnosis to a treatment and therefore broadly indicates how each of the approximately 270 PMB conditions should be treated. The treatment and care of PMB conditions should be based on healthcare that has proven to work best, taking affordability into consideration.
Should there be a disagreement about the treatment of a specific case, the standards (also called practice and protocols) in force in the public sector will be applied.
The treatment and care of some of the conditions included in the DTP may include chronic medicine, e.g HIV-infection and menopausal management. In these cases, the public sector protocols will also apply to the chronic medication. For a full list of the Diagnostic and Treatment Pairs (DTPs).
WHAT ARE DIAGNOSTIC AND TREATMENT PAIRS?