Before Joining a Medical Aid Scheme, compare a Few Quotes
It is fairly standard practice when, for instance, looking for a panel beater to repair your car, a plumber to install a new Jacuzzi, or even tickets for an overseas flight, to shop around for the best price. It makes equal sense, therefore, to do much the same when in the market for medical aid and to first get a couple of quotes before signing on the dotted line. A word of caution! You are unlikely to book a flight with an airline that you have never heard of or one with a record of frequent delays and cancellations, regardless of how cheap the fare may be. When looking to provide reliable cover for your health and for that of your loved ones, therefore, you should not allow yourself to be influenced by the price alone.
If you were to simply pick the cheapest available option, the chances are that you would be purchasing a hospital plan. Though this is certainly a good choice of product for the purpose it was intended, that purpose never included catering for all, or even most, of the possible healthcare expenses of an entire family for 365 days a year. Instead, hospital plans were intended to cover emergencies for the young, single, and generally fit with limited means.
When shopping around for medical aid quotes, therefore, the benefits offered by a given product should always take precedence over the cost of the monthly premiums. Illness is often independent of age, and, during a routine check-up, many an apparently healthy 40-year-old has been found to display symptoms of coronary artery disease. What might the impact on your family be if you should be in this position and were confronted with a bill of R300 000 or more for bypass surgery, but your scheme only agreed to pay half of the amount due? The possibility is a real one and it underlines just how important it is too look beyond the price tag and to explore the benefits of each product in sufficient detail.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of life in the digital age is the information superhighway we call the Internet or the Web. Among the millions of websites to which it offers access are specialised comparison sites where one can obtain medical aid, car hire, motor insurance, airfare, and all manner of comparative quotes almost instantly. This makes it easy to compare, not only the price of an item or service, but exactly what you will be getting for your money, at a glance.
The reality is that, however much we may wish it were otherwise, price has now become far more important to most South Africans than was the case in the past. For this reason, the most sensible strategy when using a comparison site is to select three or four items you are certain you can afford and then to examine their details more closely. That means finding the product with the benefits that most closely meet all of the known and anticipated needs of the proposed beneficiaries.
Core benefits are a speciality of KeyHealth medical aid, as are prices to suit all pockets, and dependability, so why not Contact KeyHealth first for truly competitive quotes?
