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Paidamoyo Chipunza, Harare Bureau
The Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZiMA) has called for speedy establishment of a regulatory authority for medical health insurance in Zimbabwe saying insurers continue to defy existing rules and regulations without any consequences.

ZiMA secretary general Dr Shingi Bopoto said this has disadvantaged doctors, particularly with regards to payment of claims as most insurers go beyond the stipulated 60-day timeframe.

“Every aspect of health care in Zimbabwe has a full regulatory council and all are under the health professions authority, except health insurance. We have tried to make the Ministry see that the current regulatory framework is skewed against service providers and highly favours health insurance, but to no avail,” said Dr Bopoto.

Dr Bopoto said they have made several presentations to Government through meetings at various levels, petitions, court applications, submissions to the Competitions and Tariffs Commission which all yielded no positive results.

He said the Ministry of Finance once requested that health insurers be regulated under the Insurance and Pension Commission (IPEC), but the move was resisted.

He said the Ministry further proposed a minimum capital for health insurance, the same way other insurance companies are required to have a minimum capital investment, a request which also fell on deaf ears.

“There is only one area of health care that is regulated directly from the Minister’s office, through one individual and that is health insurance,” said Dr Bopoto.

He said although Government acknowledged that no medical aid society was compliant with the law, still no corrective action was taken.

“For the past 72 months, the Ministry has been talking about establishing a regulatory authority for the health insurance industry.

“They even got the President to put this bill on this year’s legislative agenda. The year is half way through and nothing has happened,” he said.

He said as a result of the weak application of existing regulations on medical aid societies, ZiMA has begun mobilising its constituency to demonstrate against Government through a nationwide petition, preceded by a march by all doctors on September 1.

Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care Cde Aldrin Musiiwa said Government was seized with the matter and was hoping the bill to establish the regulatory authority would be tabled in Parliament before the end of this year.

“What we have now is the layman’s bill which we have since submitted to the Attorney General’s office for finalisation, after which it will be tabled in Parliament,” said Cde Musiiwa.

He said current legislation had loopholes, which made it difficult to implement on either side of the service providers’ or the insurers.

“We are hoping this regulatory authority will work on all those aspects to address current friction between medical aid societies and service providers,” said Cde Musiiwa.

Doctors and medical aid societies have always been at loggerheads with the former decrying late payments for services rendered to patients on medical aid.

On the other hand, medical aid societies complain of high and unjustified costs of medical care in Zimbabwe.