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Life Esidimeni is attracting controversy over allegations that it planned to impose irregular and exorbitant medical aid increases on its staff this year.
So said at least six junior staff members, including four from a Life Esidimeni centre in Johannesburg.
Life Esidimeni centres are owned by the Life Healthcare Group. There are 10 facilities across five provinces, providing chronic mental healthcare, frail care and substance abuse recovery.
City Press has seen Life Esidimeni documents which showed there was a plan for employee medical aid contributions to be hiked by almost 50%. Meanwhile the company was planning to increase its own contributions to its employees’s medical aid by just R22 a month.
Employees were told last year in September that the hikes would be implemented in January this year. So far, the increases have not been implemented.
However, according to a source, a Life Esidimeni human resources official indicated that the increase had been delayed and would ultimately be implemented. In addition, the staff have not received any communication that the premiums wouldn’t be implemented, the source said.
However, Discovery has denied the increases were implemented, saying they were merely “initial plans”.
A document presented to employees showed the contribution scale increases that employees on Discovery’s Keycare Plus option were set to pay. These would apply to those earning up to R8 100 a month.
These employees were paying a compulsory contribution of R990 a month last year. They were expected to pay R466 a month more for a total of R1 456 a month.
At the same time it was proposed that the company’s contribution towards their employees’ medical aid would increase by a mere R22 a month from R398 to R420.
The document also proposed that the compulsory contribution would apply to a larger income band of people earning up to R13 050 a month.
An employee, who wished to remain anonymous, said the planned increase was “completely unfair”.
The particular employee’s payslip indicated a basic pay of just more than R4 600 a month and net take-home pay of about R3 000 a month.
When presented with the document, Grace Khoza, spokesperson for the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS), said the increases as they appeared on the document were not approved.
The CMS is a statutory body that oversees private health financing at more than 80 medical schemes.
“These increases were not approved by the organisation at this level for this year although the contribution rate in the attachment is the rate [increase] applied for. The scheme can only apply increases that are approved by the CMS,” Khoza said.
“They are not lawful as they were not approved at this level for the scheme for this year. The income band was retained at up to R8 100 and not up to R13 050 as stated in the attachment.
“It’s the responsibility of the CMS to ensure that increases applied for are fair to members and in line with the Medical Schemes Act,” she said.
Khoza said that the CMS reviewed only the total contributions and were not responsible for the determination of the employer or employee portion.
Puseletso Jaure, Life Esidimeni managing director, denied any irregularity but did not dispute the increases on the document.
“We would like to state that in terms of our recruitment process, Life Esidimeni provides all new and existing employees with various medical aid options and each individual is at liberty to choose the most cost-effective option that best suits his or her healthcare needs.”
She said the medical aid renewal session included a consultation to ensure employees understood all the changes.
“At no time has Life Esidimeni made medical aid deductions from employees’ salaries without their written consent,” she said.
“Medical aid presentations were conducted in November last year and the medical aid benefits were also discussed at the general staff meeting held on October 17 last year,” Jaure said.
Discovery head of technical marketing Deon Kotze said the exorbitant increase was an “initial plan” and the company had since revised it and implemented a much lower increase of 9.9%.
“It was based on initial plans to close the lowest income band of the Keycare Plus Plan of the Discovery Health Medical Scheme. However, this was not implemented.
“The contributions for the Keycare Plus lowest income band increased by 9.9%, resulting in a contribution for a main member increasing from R990 last year to R1 088 this year,” Kotze said.
“Taking into account the company subsidy this resulted in a R76 increase for a main member. Revised communication incorporating the final increase of 9.9% was sent to all affected members in December last year.
“This provided an update to members on the change in decision and indicated what the revised contributions would be for members on the lowest income band this year,” Kotze said, adding that no employee was charged the 47% hike in contributions.
