Speaking at a Discovery Health Media Summit, Broomberg said this was the major reason behind healthcare costs increasing at rates higher than the consumer price index.
“The increase in healthcare costs is a global problem. South Africa is not alone,” Broomberg said.
He said their data showed that between 2008 and 2015, consumer price inflation was about 6.3% but medical inflation was 11.4%.
“What is driving it? Apart from an aging population there is a rising tide of chronic disease,” Broomberg said.
“A lack of physical activity is the new smoking,” he said, explaining that the fast-rising numbers of people diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, all caused by unhealthy lifestyles, were taking its toll on medical aids.
He said Discovery Health was also experiencing a 4.6% increase in claims.
“This is not blaming the members of medical schemes,” Broomberg said.
“We are seeing that people are not staying on medical aids. Or just join a medical aid when they are about to start a family and then leave again if all is well.
“Or they will then, if the baby is ill, only keep the mom and the baby on the medical aid,” he said.
Broomberg said the biggest impact, however, was that South Africa was facing an epidemic of lifestyle diseases. “According to our data, 59% of our members have registered for chronic conditions.”
He said it was no secret that medical aids use their healthy members to subsidise the ill.
Broomberg said there had, however, mainly due to a sharp increase in people suffering lifestyle diseases, been a 21% drop in healthy non-claiming members.
Broomberg said they had been taken by surprise by the popularity and uptake of their new Vitality programme rewards system, in which members are rewarded with vouchers for Kauai or Vida e Caffe, or even a way to buy an Apple smart watch for exercising enough every week.
He said their data also showed that when people started exercising, they lived healthier lifestyles.
Broomberg said advances in the medical world had also contributed to the increase in medical aid costs.
He said at this stage they had recovered and prevented fraud of about R400-million a year, but estimated that Discovery was potentially at risk of losing as much as R1-billion to fraud.
