JOHANNESBURG - The largest restricted medical scheme in the country, the Government Employees’ Medical Scheme (Gems), has announced its annual contributions increases for next year, along with enhancements of benefits.
Dr Guni Goolab, the principal officer of Gems, says the weighted average increase across all benefit options will be 7.1%.
“We are pleased to report that our increases in terms of what members will pay out of pocket per beneficiary, per month, will be modest,” Goolab says.
Gems is reinvesting more than R750million towards the enhancement of member benefits, and there will be a 5.4% enhancement of all in- and out-of-hospital benefit limits across the scheme’s entire portfolio of benefit options.
- The largest restricted medical scheme in the country, the Government Employees’ Medical Scheme (Gems), has announced its annual contributions increases for next year, along with enhancements of benefits.
More benefits providing meaningful member value
“We are now able to announce that in 2019 we are introducing an out-of-hospital Primary Care Extender Benefit on selected options. This will provide an extra cushion of R500 per beneficiary per year on the Emerald and Emerald Value options, so that members can continue to access healthcare if their benefits for general practitioner services, prescribed medicine and pathology tests limits run out before the end of the year,” says Dr Stan Moloabi, Chief Operations Officer of GEMS.
Families on the GEMS Ruby option will also receive an extra R500 per year to extend their current Out-of-Hospital Block Benefit, if this benefit limit becomes depleted.