Medihelp Medical Aid

Medihelp is one of South Africa`s largest group medical schemes, and has purportedly been operating for the best part of a century, in which time it has become the third largest medical aid scheme in the country. The company is exceptionally well-regarded in the industry, having been the recipient of many awards down the years, particularly in the realm of client service. It has achieved an A+ Global Credit rating for its ability to pay claims, 8 years in a row. Like many other modern medical aids, it puts equal emphasis on preventative health care and medical care when needed. It has a robust medical scheme administration system, and a variety of healthcare management systems to ensure that clients get efficient and high quality care.

Medihelp has a medical healthcare package that consists of 3 components: a core component, a savings account and a savings protection product. The basic offering is a networked healthcare package, known as Necesse. Approved service providers are contracted to provide the necessary services to members. These include the Life Healthcare hospital network, that provides hospitalisation, hospital procedures, emergency care and evacuation, mental health services, general practitioners, dental services, specialist services, confinement and appliances. Day-to-day medical services are rendered by the CareCross network, and include general practitioners, medication, radiology and pathology, maternity, optical, basic dentistry and HIV/AIDS treatment.

The Medihelp Plus package is a hospital plan that includes emergency transportation and HIV/AIDS care and management. Then there are the Dimension packages: Dimension Prime 1, 2 and 3, and Dimension Elite. These are all a combination of hospital plan, day-to-day medical plan and other healthcare benefits. The difference between the packages is mainly the benefit limits, and whether or not certain specialised services (like radiology and physiotherapy) are covered. The company`s web site provides a detailed comparison of these.