Medical Aid

ARE YOU PREPARED?

You had this perfect plan. Or we had. Fall in love, get married and then, when you are ready, start a family! But life likes to throw some lemons our way every now and again, and things just doesn’t work the way we would like it to. (Maybe because we don’t have a spare bottle of tequila hidden in a cupboard somewhere)

My wife recently had to go for an operation, as we are struggling to start that family (although we are very happily trying to!) We have been to a variety of doctors, who prescribed different blood tests, different medications, taking temperatures and what not. All of which has not been successful.

We finally made it to this one lady doctor, who suggested we take a deeper look. What we found is not what is important, but what is, is that the consultation with this doctor (ONLY the consultation, that lasted about 20 minutes) was R2 000. That is a very real number, especially if you compare it to medical aid rates, and that it fell way outside of what the Medical Aid was prepared to pay for. It was a cash account.

We then had to get pre-approval for the procedure, and that had a R3 000 co-payment. Also cash.

This is us, R5 000 out of pocket, before we even know if something is wrong, never mind what is wrong.

Luckily for us, thanks to an active lifestyle and a positive health saver balance, we could pay for the consultation with the Multiply Visa Card, as it works like a normal Visa Card. We also have additional Gap cover added to our Medical Aid Plan that covered the shortfall in hospital.

Were we prepared? Probably not mentally or physically, but at least we could afford it without breaking our own little piggy open.