Fedhealth focusses on continued service excellence and product simplification for 2016

Jeremy Yatt, Principal Officer of Fedhealth.

With the vision of further entrenching its new brand positioning of ‘family takes care of family’, Fedhealth’s objective for the coming year is to continue its focus on delivering value- adding support as well as embarking on a product simplification plan that promises benefit richness and value for money.

The overall weighted average increase for 2016 across all options is 9.9%, with option specific increases ranging from 4.7% - 14.5%.

Over the next three years, Fedhealth will embark on a product simplification plan. “A critical review of our option range revealed some areas that needed attention to ensure consistency, simplification and a seamless progression from one option to another. At the end of this three-year period, we will have an option range that shows a natural progression from in-hospital cover from PMB level of care only, up to unlimited cover and a choice of the level of day-to-day funding that will suit members’ needs,” says Jeremy Yatt, Principal Officer of Fedhealth.

“One of our first priorities, with which we started in 2015, is to phase out the Out of Hospital Expense Benefit or OHEB. In a review of over 90 options across the 10 largest open medical schemes in the industry, it was revealed that Fedhealth is the only scheme to have a combined day-to-day benefit comprising Savings, Risk and Threshold. All other schemes offering a Threshold benefit provide day-to-day funding through a Savings account only, and are not offering a Risk component. Currently this combination applies to five of our options. In order to align ourselves with the rest of the market, we will gradually phase out OHEB on all options during the next three years.

“We will, however, replace OHEB with enhanced savings levels which means that members will have more day-to-day spending than they currently have with the existing OHEB/Savings combination. A great benefit of the Savings account is that any unused balance at the end of the year carries over into the following year – giving the member even more day-to-day spending. Unused OHEB was never carried over.”

A number of product enhancements have also been made for 2016, with simplified in-hospital co-payments a priority across the entire option range.

One of the most exciting additions to the 2016 year is that Fedhealth has partnered with Sanlam Reality, the second largest loyalty programme in South Africa. For the first time Fedhealth members will have access to some outstanding discounts on gym, air travel, retail etc.

“As part of the bigger scheme objective of maximising member value through innovation, and managing the risk pool, the scheme has added health risk assessments to the existing screening benefit on all options. We also continue to pay more from Risk than other schemes, ensuring that members’ day-to-day medical spending not only goes further, but works harder for them when they really need it,” concludes Yatt.