Discovery Health revenue up by 5%

Last week, Discovery shared our audited results for the past financial year, ending on 30 June 2021. Adrian’s excellent presentation provides strategic insight not only into the financials, but also importantly the social contribution Discovery has made around our core purpose of Enhancing and Protecting the lives of our customers.

I am delighted to lift out the highlights relating to Discovery Health from our Founder and CEO Adrian Gore’s excellent results presentation.

Discovery Health revenue up by 5%

Discovery Health delivered a strong financial performance with total revenue increasing by 5%, to R8.7 Billion, and normalised operating profit up by 7% to R3.4 Billion. This reflects continued growth despite environmental head winds, with ongoing significant gains in operational efficiency.

Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) - the largest open medical scheme in South Africa now representing almost 60% of all scheme members in the open medical scheme industry - implemented a delayed contribution increase strategy for the 2021 calendar year. This provided some relief to scheme members navigating the financial pressures emerging from the pandemic and associated lockdowns. All in all this saved members R2.2bn in contributions for the period, and also resulted in the lowest real increase in medical scheme contributions for members of DHMS in the market, at 2.95% weighted average for the full year. The average contribution differential between DHMS and the next eight largest open medical schemes has increased to 17.3%.?

Furthermore, despite the broadly challenging context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Discovery Health Medical Scheme continues to attract new membership, experiencing net growth of more than 20?000 lives for the first six months of 2021, with 7% fewer members choosing to terminate their policies.

We need to vaccinate more people, faster

Since the start of 2020, Discovery Health has invested significant time and resources into enhancing local and global understanding of COVID-19 disease and the pandemic as a whole. In 2021 this has included significant support to the complex government-led Mass Vaccination Programme. We have worked in close partnership with the National and Provincial Departments of Health and remain committed to investing in and supporting the process, having deployed more than 1000 staff into the Discovery mass vaccination campaign.

To date, over 1.8 million Discovery clients have received a COVID-19 vaccine dose at vaccination sites across the country. And, we are proud to report that over 550?000 vaccine doses have been administered at Discovery’s nine dedicated vaccination sites.

?We applaud the country’s milestone of vaccinating more than 12 million adult South African residents. However, given the intensity of the very recent third wave of infection and spread of the highly transmissible delta variant which drove this wave, we must vaccinate more people, even faster.?

Retail product growth and innovation

I am particularly pleased by the growth of the non-medical scheme products and their accelerating contribution to Discovery Health revenue and earnings. Revenues from the FlexiCare, Discovery Gap Cover and Discovery Healthy Company products grew by 29% - and now cumulatively account for almost 200 000?lives under Discovery Health’s administration. The group of non-medical scheme products achieved the milestone of exceeding together with R 1 billion revenue for Discovery Health – an important and rewarding achievement indeed.

Those who follow my LinkedIn posts know that I am extremely passionate about digital healthcare and how this will influence the future of healthcare systems. Over the past financial year Discovery Health launched a number of digital product enhancements and innovations aimed at broadening access to quality healthcare. Most notable was the launch of our Connected Care platform which brings scheme members, healthcare providers and case managers together on a single, user-friendly platform, founded around a patient-centric model. We will be launching even more new product innovations and enhancements for 2022, at our 30 September Discovery Day launch event.