Hospital plans are designed to provide cover for private healthcare funding for the unknown or perhaps unexpected and expensive mishaps in life, such as a big accident, illness or disease. In order to keep contributions affordable, day-to-day or out of hospital expenses are mostly funded by members, as and when needed. This also enables members to exercise direct control over such expenditure.
Typical hospital plans either restrict members to a network of hospitals and doctors where members are limited to the selected network of providers, or else non-network service providers, where members have freedom of choice and can make use of any private hospital or doctor of their choice.
Choosing a hospital plan that provides the best possible cover and value for money can be quite a daunting task, as medical schemes in South Africa all market and position their benefit options differently.
The recently published GTC Medical Aid Survey, conducted by GTC Healthcare, compared different categories of medical aid benefit options. Specifically related to non-network hospital plans, their “Core” analysis evaluated the cost vs benefits provided by 17 hospital plans that cover in-hospital costs, PMBs and/or cover for chronic illnesses.
Although the survey compared open medical schemes’ benefit options, it was neither a complete medical aid report/analysis nor was it intended to flout the conditions set out in the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act’s General Code of Conduct insofar as comparing different financial products with each other is concerned.
The below table lists the top 10 “Core” hospital plans included in the above survey in order of their cost vs benefit rating (best value for money), but is now updated to indicate the 2016 monthly contributions which will be effective from 1 January 2016.
Ranking information contained in the above table has been obtained from the GTC Medical Aid Survey.
Benefits and pricing information contained in the above table have been obtained from BrokerTools.
Benefits and pricing information contained in the above table obtained from the scheme’s website.