Can You Be Satisfied with a Medical Aid Plan?
Can a Person really be Satisfied with a Medical Aid Plan?
- Yes, you will be satisfied if it offers tailored affordability
- Certainly, if it fulfils its objective. That is, it provides effective cover for hospitalisation due to an injury or illness, surgery and treatment for critical illness
- Yes, if the medical aid or company gives you several different plan options
- Yes, it if allows you to customise coverage according to your unique requirements
- If it includes cover for dental services, rehabilitative care, vision care, emergency care, health screenings etc
There are Medical Aids that Tick the Right Boxes
In South Africa, you could say that it can get tricky trying to find a medical aid that suits you. Make no mistake, South Africa has some good medical schemes of which Liberty Life Medical Aid, Momentum Health, Topmed, Fedhealth, Bonitas, Discovery Health and Selfmed are some of them.
With many medical schemes, if you find something you like about one of them, chances are there’ll be 10 things you don’t like. If you’ve got cancer, for instance, you won’t like knowing that there is a limit on how much your medical aid will pay 
in a year or over a lifetime. Will the plan provide all the medicines and equipment you may need? You will need to find out what types of services the plan won’t pay for. These are called exclusions.
Have an Idea of your Health Care Costs
Many South Africans, fortunately, get help with a medical aid plan through an employer, but if you’re not one of them, you’ll be looking for an inexpensive option. No medical aid plan is going to cover every health expense. So to get an idea of what your health care costs will be, look at your premiums and other costs.
Before you choose a suitable medical aid plan, you’ll first need an idea of what your typical health care costs are. When choosing a medical aid some other aspects you may want more clarification on are –
- When will cover start?
Medical aids have a 3 month general waiting period, and they will pay no claims in this period. For any pre-existing medical conditions you have, medical aid can also impose a 12 month waiting period. - Will dependants have cover if the main member dies?
- Yes, as long as the members continues paying contributions.
- Medical savings account – this is a pool of the member’s own money from the contribution for payment of day-to-day medical expenses – those medical events that happen outside a hospital. Money not used in the one year carries over to the next year and goes to the member on termination of membership.
- Late joiner penalties – a late joiner penalty is for those members joining after the age of 35.
network options – they use a network of hospitals and doctors that the member must also use or there will be no payout. The idea is to keep medical costs down. - Co-payments – this is a portion of the cost of a procedure and the member will have to pay this.
Selfmed members are overwhelmingly satisfied
Once you’ve compared medical aid plans and you’ve seen what is available and what is important to you, it’s time to choose. Many South Africans are gravitating towards Selfmed as an excellent choice for medical aid scheme cover.
They’ve discovered that Selfmed provides reliable medical aid cover. Most importantly they like that Selfmed doesn’t use their monthly premiums to give them useless ‘gifts’ such as shopping rewards or movie tickets. Nice though they are, they’re unrelated to good medical care.
Selfmed offers affordable, simple medical care designed to meet your needs. They offer a range of options tailored to your budget and medical needs. They’re financially sound too which means they can pay out all legitimate claims.
When it comes to choosing a suitable medical aid plan, the question should be ‘why NOT choose Selfmed?
All info was correct at time of publishing