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Circular 27 of 2021: COVID-19 Vaccines Membership Data

The National Department of Health (NDoH), together with the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS),  established a public-private sector initiative to facilitate the collection of membership data from registered medical schemes in South Africa for the purposes of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

This initiative aims to ensure that there is a validation process of medical schemes beneficiaries registering on the Electronic Vaccines Data System (EVDS), ensuring inclusivity and meaningful contribution.

Call for membership data

Medical schemes and administrators are called upon to submit minimum beneficiary information indicators as defined in the data collection tool document attached to this circular. Data Officers responsible for the submission of the utilisation data are accustomed to this process and are best placed to compile and submit the data to the CMS.

These minimum datasets will be used to monitor access to the vaccines by beneficiaries of medical schemes. In addition, providing this vital information for the national COVID-19 vaccines rollout will also assist to provide a clearer view of the national response to COVID-19.

Schemes, administrators are requested to report the following data fields to the CMS.

Data Table Description  
Column Description Data type Column Header Notes Mandatory Value: yes=cannot be blank, no=blank allowed
Scheme Reference Number Integer RefNo Unique scheme reference number Yes
Financial Year Integer FinancialYear 2021 Yes
Month Integer FinancialMonth Month of the financial year Yes
Membership Number Text MembNumber Main member membership number Yes
Beneficiary type Integer BeneficiaryType 1= Principal member, 2= Adult dependent, 3= child dependent, 4= unknown Yes
First Name Text Name Beneficiary name Yes
Surname Integer Surname Beneficiary surname Yes
Identity Number Text Beneficiaries Beneficiary id number Yes
Passport Number Text Members Beneficiary Passport number (Skip if id number If provided) No
Date of birth Date DOB Date of birth of the beneficiary (YYYY-MM-DD).

This field may never be NULL or empty.

Yes

The data specification document, web service, and upload tool are available on the links below:

Schemes will be required to submit data on a monthly basis to ensure beneficiary lists are updated, although the system will allow for weekly updates.

All data submission and tool related queries must be directed to vaccinesdb@medicalschemes.co.za.

Your co-operation will be highly appreciated.

Download the Circular here.