I started my career as a General practitioner in the Northern suburbs of Cape Town in 1988. Ten years later after developing early pregnancy complications, I started working part time in the Managed Healthcare industry whilst continuing with part time clinical practice until 2008.
Since then I have been working full time in the funding industry. My corporate career included working for the 3 largest administrators/managed care companies in South Africa namely Medscheme, Discovery and Momentum Metropolitan Health Solutions. In between I worked for Neil Harvey and associates where we developed a managed care software platform.
During my corporate career I have been exposed to all facets of the funding industry. That ranged from Medical Advisor Services, Pharmacy Benefit Management, Fraud Waste and Abuse, Medical Scheme and Board of Trustee engagements and Claim Rules development. Achieving my MSc In Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Stellenbosch enabled me to improve my skills at Data Analysis and Interpretation, Population Segmentation, Policy and Guideline development and Value Demonstration.
As my career unfolded, I found myself in strategic positions where I specifically develop methodologies to identify high risk population groups and to create interventions to manage such groups. This also empowers me to develop documentation, presentations and training material for such interventions. As many people before me experienced, the corporate environment is extremely stimulating and provides massive learning opportunities and can be extremely rewarding.
However, there is a time to come and a time to go. At the end of 2019, our family travelled to Europe and spent Christmas and New Year in Italy. This enriching experience and precious time with my loved ones culminated in my decision to take an early retirement from the Corporate world to enable me to serve the bigger South African Landscape. Looking back at the devastation of Covid 19 in Italy, makes me even more determined to make a difference in healthcare in South Africa.