It’s not easy to put a price on your health. Illness can often lead to severe hardship, particularly if a breadwinner is the one affected. The state provides a healthcare service for unemployed South Africans and those with only an average income. However, where once it was the envy of many other countries, it is now overburdened and underfunded, prompting more to seek private treatment. Medical aids introduced cheap hospital plans to help those unable to meet the higher premiums of more comprehensive medical cover.
As it happens, medical aid companies were not the first to come up with this idea. It was, in fact, the insurance industry that first recognised the need to subsidise private healthcare. Its solution was to offer policyholders a fixed sum of cash for each day spent as an in-patient. While this was insufficient to cover the cost of accommodation and treatment, it helped with any incidental expense and lost income. By contrast, the cheap hospital plans of today are more realistic. These were not compiled by insurers based on the traditional insurance model. Instead, medical aid companies, using their greater knowledge and experience of healthcare, devised a solution that would meet hospitalisation costs more completely.
Despite being a marked improvement on the insurance products, which it is more accurate to describe as hospital cash plans, most cheap hospital plans do precisely what their name suggests. They cover the bulk of a member’s medical costs but only while the member is in the hospital – covering other medical expenses like GP or specialist fees and day-to-day medication will be the member’s responsibility.
When medical aids first launched this type of product, they had a specific kind of individual in mind. The product was aimed at younger, unmarried individuals who enjoyed good general health but whose income was insufficient to pay for a fully-comprehensive product. Under these circumstances, cheap hospital plans can be a lifesaver – both literally and figuratively. Paying for paracetamol, cough mixture, or a GP visit should not be a problem even for students and those in lower-paid jobs. But a motor accident or severe illness could not only result in physical death but, without suitable cover, financial suicide as well.
Unfortunately, thanks to a global recession, wholesale unemployment and similar adverse influences, many more people now find that, even though a cheap hospital plan may not provide all the financial support with all the healthcare expenses they might need, it’s the only option they can afford. Fortunately, there could be a better option for those in this position.
When a medical aid company sets out to develop a more affordable product, cheap does not have to be a euphemism for inadequate. By employing innovative methods to cut costs without removing or minimising its members’ benefits, Medshield has succeeded in developing cheap hospital plans with a difference. They not only maximise the essential cover for the main member and any dependent members but also include some invaluable year-round, out-of-hospital benefits. If you are looking for peace of mind and value for money on a limited budget, your best option is to contact Medshield for all your medical aid needs.
