How do you rate hospital plan benefits in terms of getting the best? Medical aids and hospital plans are financial products that protect a person when they’re sick or injured.
Are you looking for extensive cover or are you looking to cash in on as much as you can?
Choosing a hospital plan requires you to take a few things into account namely:
- Your age.
- Your health.
- The ages of your family members.
- Health status of family members.
- Family income.
South Africa has many excellent medical aid schemes. All offer good private hospital cover if you don’t have the budget for a comprehensive medical aid plan.
Make Sure to Choose a Medical Aid Hospital Plan
Choosing a hospital plan is good for those who are healthy, who don’t visit a doctor 
To ensure you get the best hospital plan benefits, choose a hospital plan from a medical scheme such as Bonitas, Genesis, Fedhealth, Selfmed or Discovery.
These hospital plans cover your costs for emergency procedures like when you’ve been in a car accident as well as for the treatment of serious illnesses. You can upgrade your hospital plan when you feel the one you have is no longer meeting your needs.
There are some instances with hospital plans where an upfront payment will be required. Your medical aid will stipulate in the hospital plan you choose where this is applicable.
When you do research on hospital plans and their benefits, you’ll find that some medical aids such as Medshield offers an extended benefit cover of 200%. This is on certain in-hospital services that will include surgical procedures and confinement.
Stick to Affordable Network Health care Providers
These medical aid hospital plans offer in-hospital cover at affordable monthly rates. Some schemes have certain rules to them. For instance they will tell you which hospitals and health care providers their members may use. This is because the medical aid scheme has a network of providers and hospitals and the scheme covers 100% of the costs (according to their own reckoning, not according to the bill).
If members insist on using a hospital or doctor outside the scheme’s network, they will need to pay for the over-and-above medical costs.
You have to do research on the different hospital plans.
Some Hospital Plans with Great Benefits
- With Medshield’s Essential Plan you benefit from unlimited in-hospital cover through their network. They also offer the benefit of a Personal Savings Account. This allows you to manage your day-to-day benefits. Their Standard Plan also offers this cover, but it has the optional maternity benefit payable from risk. Medshield has a host of plans that will suit your needs.
- Fedhealth offers their Blue Door Plus Hospital Plan which is a salary-banded option. From just R690pm, Blue Door Plus also has its own hospital plan benefits. These include unlimited prescribed medication, unlimited private hospitalisation at network hospitals, cover for basic dentistry and optometry and unlimited FP consultations at contracted FPs.
Conclusion
Research all the top medical aid schemes and ensure you get a hospital plan that offers the best price, the best customer services and the best benefits for the budget you’re on.
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