Update on the Practice Cost Study (PCS) results

Dear SAMA Members in Private Practice,

The South African Medical Association (SAMA) would like to thank all the Specialists and General Practitioners who contributed to SAMA’s Practice Cost Study project since August 2017.

As communicated before, the Consortium commissioned to undertake the study had no choice but to extend the data collection period of the study because of a slow response rate and low levels of participation from medical practitioners. Data collection therefore continued until the end of March 2018, at which stage sufficient responses were received to claim a representative sample in many practice areas.

The Consortium provided SAMA with a final report on the study results at the end of June 2018. SAMA has subsequently finalised its internal review of the report and provided it to our attorneys, who are conducting a brief holistic review thereof from a legal perspective. The report will then be provided to the Health Market Inquiry Panel of the Competition Commission– they have requested to be provided with the report upon finalisation thereof, prior to it being published and/or distributed.

We therefore hope to be in a position to make this report available to our members as soon as possible, most probably within the next two months.