Offer your employee some private medical cover

● Medical schemes that offer full private hospital cover and day-to-day benefits are expensive. The GTC Medical Aid Survey identified the CompCare Networx ED option as the top-rated scheme for low-income earners that offers private medical cover in a network of hospitals and with an overall limit on hospital benefits.

For those earning less than R4,000 a month, contributions start at about R450 a month.

Scheme options that offer cover for private emergency transportation to a government hospital and private day-today benefits are available.

For example, Discovery Health offers groups of more than 10 employees an essential primary health-care plan for R158 a month for a single member. This covers unlimited visits to a GP, acute medicines, emergency transport and R100,000 of trauma cover in a private facility.

For an additional R111 a month, chronic medicines for 27 common conditions, an eye test every two years, and basic pathology and radiology can be added.

Momentum offers a plan for domestic workers known as DomestiCare, which offers unlimited access to GPs, acute medicines, basic X-rays and pathology services to domestic workers and small business employees. The plan costs R256 a month.

For R286 a month, you can include basic optometry and dentistry benefits. Chronic medicines must be obtained from state hospitals.

A list of primary health-care plans is available on the Council for Medical Schemes website, medicalschemes.com. Beware of the vast differences between plans. For example, consultations with a GP vary from three per year to unlimited, chronic medicines may or may not be covered, specialist visits may not be covered or covered up to a rand amount or number of visits per family per year.

Some plans have no benefits for pathology, radiology, optometry, dentistry and maternity checkups, while others offer limited benefits for these.