BPOMAS struggles to pay doctors

BAME PIET
Staff Writer | Tuesday December 14, 2010 00:00

 

Informed private medical practitioners say the medical aid scheme struggles to pay them on time, and when it does, the payment is never in full.  Not only that, it takes a substantial period of time before the full amount is settled.

'It is really difficult.  They can't pay us on time and on many occasions, they can't pay a full amount and it takes weeks or even months before that outstanding amount can finally be settled,' said one doctor.

He confirmed that many of his colleagues have the same problems when they submit claims to the Associated Fund Administrators (AFA) under which BPOMAS falls.

According to the doctors, the problems have been ongoing since last year and there apparently is no prospect of improvement in the near future.

Meanwhile, AFA marketing department officers say they were attending questions Mmegi sent them last month. 

Three weeks later, while still waiting to get answers from AFA, the officers said they were working on an advertising campaign and were unable to provide answers to the questions.  They were of the feeling that the advertising campaign will answer our questions.

The questions wanted to establish the number of clients the scheme caters for, and whether it is true that the medical scheme is bankrupt after investing hundreds of millions of Pula in the state of the art Bokamoso Private Hospital near Mmopane on the outskirts of Gaborone.

The hospital is going through a rough time a few months after it was opened to the public.

There are also suspicions that the medical aid scheme is applying tactics to force patients to utilise services at Bokamoso Hospital to keep it going for some time.  This, it is alleged, has also had inflated charges for such services, which are said to be high as compared to other health service providers.

It has been difficult to contact Bokamoso by phone.