To further improve the administration of the State-owned administered compensation system of occupational lung diseases, the Minerals Council South Africa has entered into a three-year partnership, dubbed the co-governance model, with the Medical Bureau for Occupation Disease (MBOD) and the Compensation Commissioner for Occupational Diseases (CCOD).
This model will be used to implement projects and initiatives that will help the MBOD and the CCOD become an efficient and streamlined compensation fund and administrator.
Under the terms of the new model, the MBOD and CCOD will work in equal partnership with the council, with the Compensation Commissioner and the director of the MBOD as administrator and the council as a provider of strategic inputs.
The partnership will be overseen and managed by a steering committee on which both bodies have representatives.
Among the new systems and projects to be implemented is a compensation claims management system (CCMS), an integrated information technology platform that can manage the entire compensation process end-to-end, to replace the largely obsolete one that was developed for the MBOD some years ago.
Further to the CCMS, 14 other projects have been identified, for which the Minerals Council has budgeted R120-million over the period.
The council identified three of these as being the most crucial. This includes the digitisation of chest X-rays; creating a network of benefit medical examination service providers; and improving accounting practices.