South Africa’s Competition Commission on Thursday invited the public to give their input on the submissions made to the commission by the private healthcare sector, as part of a market inquiry into the sector.

In January last year, the commission launched the market inquiry into the sector, as it was concerned about the ongoing high private healthcare costs.

Its investigation was aimed at determining the general state of competition in this sector to determine what could be done to make accessible, affordable, high-quality and advanced private healthcare more widely available.

It further wanted to determine how the market set its prices, as well as ensure that the market allowed for citizens’ constitutional right to access healthcare.

The commission had set a deadline for November 2014 for the submission of input from those operating in the healthcare sector.

It revealed on Thursday that submissions had been received from healthcare practitioners and their associations; healthcare funders and administrators; nongovernmental organisations; trade unions; government; and private individuals.

Competition Commission inquiry chairperson and former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo said the submissions were of "very high" quality, but noted that two of the 68 submissions had been retracted, owing to one being irrelevant and another having been withdrawn by the subcommittee.

He pointed out that many of the submissions, which totalled 15 000 pages, highlighted the same issues, including that private health expenditure was high and that private healthcare inflation was higher than general inflation.

“Some submissions have sought to explain the expenditure and price inflation by reference to market power in three areas in the private healthcare sector, namely hospital groups, medical schemes and specialists. We should add, however, that there are conflicting views on the issue of market power, in particular, whether it exists and, if so, where it resides,” Ngcobo noted.

Many submissions had touched on the subjects of inadequate enforcement of the applicable regulations, as well as ineffective oversight by the regulatory bodies, while others argued that the market was being overregulated, “resulting in barriers to entry and expansion in the private healthcare sector”.

He highlighted that there was an overall concensus that there was a regulatory gap that needed to be dealt with, as it had many adverse effects on the market, “on the vulnerable people [sick and injured] who depend on the private healthcare sector”.

Another issue was that the sector felt that there was a lack of information on and from patients, which translated into a lack of transparency in accessing private healthcare information, in particular, on pricing, costs and quality of services. “They have submitted that this lack of information places patients at a disadvantage when making decisions on services,” Ngcobo said.

“I need not remind you that the success of this inquiry lies not so much in the panel, but in [the public’s] willingness to cooperate with the panel by providing it with information that will enable it to accurately determine whether or not the private healthcare sector functions in a competitive manner, and whether there are barriers preventing access to healthcare services which can and should be removed,” he added.

The public would have until 17:00 on March 5 to comment.

The commission’s technical team would also shortly embark on a process of seeking additional information on the submissions, which was expected to be completed by March 30.