More collaboration is needed among those in the private healthcare sector to effectively deal with corruption, says Katlego Mothudi, the Board of Healthcare Funders' managing director. Mothudi said that there also needed to be adequate consequence management when it comes to those implicated in corruption in the sector.

At a webinar on Sunday on corruption in the private healthcare sector, Katlego Mothudi, the Board of Healthcare Funders' managing director, said that the sector needed to collaborate more in order to tackle corruption.

"[The sector] should be sharing data and sharing strategies so that fraudsters have little room to move around. We also need partnerships with law enforcement entities because the industry can't be the judge and the jury [when it deals with fraud and corruption]," said Mothudi, who's worked in the healthcare sector for 25 years.

The Council for Medical Schemes estimates that the total cost of fraud in the South African private healthcare system amounts to about R22-billion a year.

Mothudi said that the majority of the cases of corruption involved false claims. "That's when healthcare professionals claim for services not rendered or claim for incorrect services."

The Council for Medical Schemes said that fraud, abuse or waste accounts...