Gauteng - The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) are informing relevant stakeholders about the pending liquidation of the Community Medical Aid Scheme (COMMED) in terms of Section 53 of the Medical Schemes Act.
After taking into consideration reports issued by the Registrar by the provisional Curator and the schemes actuary, the decision to liquidate COMMED was taken, with the concurrence of the Council. The CMS is satisfied that this decision is in the best interests of the beneficiaries.
In a move that is aimed at protecting the interest of COMMED members going forward, the acting Registrar for the CMS has engaged several schemes with the view of moving the current COMMED members to another scheme.
A statement from the Council for Medical Schemes stated, "Following this initiative, COMMED and the Bonitas Medical Scheme (Bonitas) have reached an agreement to move current members of COMMED to Bonitas. As part of the agreement between the two schemes, the members who are moved from COMMED will not be subjected to any general or condition-specific waiting periods, as a result of the move. The move of members should not be construed as an amalgamation and Bonitas will not be taking over the assets and liabilities of COMMED."
CMS also states that the liquidation process will commence once the move of the COMMED members to Bonitas has been concluded.
This pending liquidation of COMMED was preceded by several processes including the placement of the scheme under provisional curator-ship by the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria on June 2 this year, following a successful application by the acting Registrar, this in terms of Section 56(1) of the Medical Schemes Act.
The CMS will, however, continue to exercise statuary oversight regarding the affairs of the medical schemes in general as a means to ensure that the interests of members of the medical schemes are protected at all times.