Approximately 50% of South Africans constitute the middle class.
They are not “poor”, nor are they “rich”. They are just “us” - normal people like you and me.
And let’s face it, over the last 18 months we’ve had to absorb astronomical petrol and other price hikes not to mention the disastrous effect of load shedding. Mounting financial struggles continue to converge and to push our household finances and businesses down.
What about our medical scheme coverage?
When income is stretched, our decisions on where to spend and where to save become critical.
More and more employers are abandoning compulsory medical scheme membership for their staff. This makes sense as there is no longer a tax advantage to employees. At the same time, an increasing number of existing members are “buying down” on their medical aid cover.
One of the fundamental problems with medical scheme membership is that most members, once they have joined a medical scheme, usually stay on that medical scheme, irrespective of their satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with service levels and / or challenges with affordability.
Why this membership apathy?
Ignorance, stagnation and a fear of the unknown are usually the main reasons why people stay with their medical scheme, or on a specific benefit option. They believe the principal of “once covered, always covered”. Their perception is that it’s a cumbersome admin burden to move membership between medical schemes.
Unintended elephant in the room - medical aid brokers?
Another important contributing factor is the fact that company appointed medical aid brokers will seldom move employees from one medical scheme to another.
Given all the time and admin required, there is zero financial incentive for a medical aid broker to move members between medical schemes. The Medical Schemes Act limits medical aid brokers’ commission to 3% plus VAT of a member’s contribution, or R127.86, whichever is the lesser.
In other words, the higher the contribution the higher the commission to the broker. On this basis, can it be said that your broker always has your best interests at heart?
What do medical aid brokers earn?
To demonstrate this with an example - broker commission on a monthly medical aid premium of R4,262 per month or more is capped at R127,86.
A monthly premium of less that R4,262 will result in a lesser commission for the broker.
Understandably, given the fact that time is money and we all need to earn a living, brokers have little or no incentive to put in all the time in terms of advice and admin to move a member to another medical scheme, unless there is a compelling reason to do so, when his monthly commission will stay exactly the same, or may even be less.
Has your broker got your best interests at heart?
Medical scheme increases for 2024 range between 5.4% and 16%.
This increase is no different from the general trend in previous years, yet members are often “left” on schemes whose annual contribution increases consistently outperforms inflation. It may not make commercial sense for the broker to move clients to a more affordable/better benefit medical scheme when the result is additional work coupled with the same, or less commission, for the broker.
Genesis Medical Scheme may have the ANSWER
Companies who subsidise their employees’ medical scheme contributions and who find it difficult to do so, and/or individuals who struggle to keep up with their medical scheme contributions could consider moving their medical scheme cover to Genesis Medical Scheme.
The Scheme’s unique benefits, coupled with its consistent financial stability, is a testimony to their rock-solid 28-year history of outstanding service and unequalled value for money.
Lowest medical aid increase for 2024
Genesis has announced an average contribution increase of only 5.4% for 2024. This is the lowest average contribution increases of all open medical schemes in South Africa for 2024. The Scheme has also announced some of the lowest annual increases for more than a decade now.
BEST value-for-money medical aid/hospital plan
Adult and child contributions on Genesis’ MED-100 benefit option are only R1,530 and R490 per month respectively. According to the November 2023 edition of FAnews, this is the LOWEST adult and child contributions out of 180 medical scheme benefit options (non-income-based options and where members are not forced to make use of network hospitals).
The gap in the market between the cost of Genesis benefit options in relation to other open medical schemes is significant, mainly as a result of the financial benefits of effective and hands-on self-administration for almost three decades.
To demonstrate this, consider the following example:
A family of 4 (2 adults + 2 children) will pay R8,601 per month for a hospital plan from one of the bigger medical aid schemes in South Africa. This hospital plan provides comprehensive in-hospital cover, the scheme rate is 200% and members can go to any private hospital and use any doctor or specialist of their choice.
The same hospital plan will cost R5,480 per month for a family of 4 on Genesis.
Put differently, these two hospital plans effectively provide the same level of cover, but cost R3,121 per month less on Genesis Medical Scheme.
That amounts to a cost saving of R37,452 per year!
Massive savings for your business
And - if you are a business owner and cover the medical aid cost of 20 employees, you will be looking at a cost saving of R749,040 per year! In other words, your business will make that much more money available to your staff – an increase at no cost to the firm!
No need to pay more to occupy the same bed in hospital
No matter which medical scheme you belong to - members get the same treatment in hospital. There is no need to pay more to occupy the same bed in hospital. And whilst people may ask why Genesis is so affordable, the real question that should be asked is: Why are other schemes so expensive?
Join Genesis - with or without a broker
If you are a business owner and use a medical aid broker for your employees’ medical aid, isn’t it time they offer Genesis to your employees? Or, if you don’t have a broker, you can join Genesis directly.