The software package has been locally developed and is wholly owned by Veripath Veripath's Pathology Perspective International Overview South African private pathology practices are run very much along the lines of pathology practices in Canada, Australia and the USA over the last 30 years.
Service is based on fee for service and third party funding.
This is a combination of events not conducive to cost containment and in some cases open to overservicing and billing abuse, particularly with the addition of the EDI billing process. Most EDI pathology billing processes are taken on trust with no audit or verification process in place. To this end, funders and Government departments in both countries over the last 10 years have recovered large sums of money. In 1985 the Parliament of Australia commissioned an investigation by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts into Medical Fraud and Overservicing with reference to Pathology. We have estimated that the South African pathology funder spend will be in excess of R1.8 billion in the year 1999.