{"id":355171,"date":"2019-11-19T08:36:56","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T06:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=355171"},"modified":"2019-11-19T08:36:56","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T06:36:56","slug":"medical-aid-price-increase-for-government-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/355171\/medical-aid-price-increase-for-government-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical aid price increase for government employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s largest restricted medical aid, the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) has announced price increases for 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The GEMS is a medical scheme restricted to government employees, and with over 1.8 million beneficiaries is the largest closed scheme in the country, and the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/346434\/these-are-the-biggest-medical-aid-schemes-in-south-africa\/\">second largest medical scheme overall.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The scheme offers four levels of coverage plans for members (Sapphire, Beryl, Ruby and Emerald), with monthly contributions in 2019 ranging from R1,116 a month to R3,125 a month, for a single members (depending on salary band).<\/p>\n<p>For 2020, the scheme has announced a weighted increase to contributions of 7.7%.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme also announced a change in name of the Sapphire option which will now be called Tanzanite One.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Scheme endeavours to keep annual increases to a minimum without compromising members\u2019 access to quality healthcare as we continue to prioritise the healthcare needs of over 720,000 principal members and over 1.8 million beneficiaries entrusted to us,&#8221; said Dr Stan Moloabi, GEMS chief operations officer.<\/p>\n<p>These are the main changes to the scheme for 2020:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tanzanite One<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sapphire renamed to Tanzanite One<\/li>\n<li>Members will have access to a network of healthcare providers by nominating a general practitioner of their choice to coordinate their healthcare needs.<\/li>\n<li>Members will have access to private hospitals, subject to utilising the GEMS private hospital network.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Emerald and Emerald Value Option (EVO)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Will have the lowest monthly contributions increase of all options<\/li>\n<li>Both EVO and Emerald benefit options offer the same level of healthcare cover, however EVO is more affordable as members make use of a network of healthcare providers having nominated a general practitioner of their choice to coordinate their healthcare needs.<\/li>\n<li>Members who switch to EVO can experience around R600\u2019s worth of savings on their monthly contribution &#8211; equivalent to R7,200 money back in their pockets per annum.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>GEMS said that members are encouraged to assess whether they are on the correct scheme that matches their healthcare needs, and to switch if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The benefit option selection season will be open from 7 November 2019 until 7 December 2019. Should members wish to join a different option offered by the Scheme, they are encouraged to make the change during this period,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/341143\/here-are-all-your-discovery-medical-aid-price-increases-for-2020\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Here are all your Discovery medical aid price hikes for 2020<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s largest restricted medical aid, the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) has announced price increases for 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":355173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[12448,26],"class_list":["post-355171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-gems","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355171"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":355181,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355171\/revisions\/355181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}