Medical aid is a crucial investment in our society of fast cars, fatty foods and high stress levels. Obtaining medical aid as a pensioner or senior citizen can be tricky, however, especially when you have not been on medical aid for most of your younger life.
As you get older, it is a sad fact that your health generally starts to deteriorate. Your health care needs can often increase exponentially at this time in your life, and you need good solid medical aid cover now more than ever.
A key issue for pensioners is that once retired, your monthly income becomes sufficiently squeezed, if it does not dry out completely. Having good retirement plans in place from an early age is essential in ensuring that you have enough money to continue paying for premium medical aid services. This is not always a viable reality, however, and the result is that older people end up paying for hospital plans only, most of which do not provide the kind of medical cover and care required by these aging citizens.
For many people in South Africa, their medical aid premiums are either fully or partly subsidized by their employers. This of course also comes to an end at retirement age (which for most people is 65). Some companies do offer options for post-retirement medical aid funding, so ensure you speak to your employers in advance to find out what your options are. It may be worth paying a higher contribution while you are still employed, to ensure you are covered for a number of years post your employment.
Sadly, there are no medical aids that offer you a “pensioner’s discount”, due to the fact that you become a greater risk as you get older. The other sad fact is that most, if not all medical aids do not willingly accept senior citizens to join their schemes if these people have not been a member from earlier on in their lives.
Whilst this may seem harsh and unfair, the reason for this is logical – medical aids do not want to take on members for whom it seems likely that they will need to frequently pay out for, when these members have not contributed much in terms of premiums. These situations would represent a loss for the medical aid providers, and the fact remains that these providers are running a business at the end of the day, and need to ensure they are able to run at a profit.
While some will accept pensioners with no prior medical aid history, the conditions and joining restrictions will most likely be strict. For example, harsh “late-joiner” fees are usually applied to these applicants. Further, cover restrictions are usually applied for a much longer period than they would be for a younger person. A person in their late 60’s, for instance, may be restricted from claiming for a particular condition for a full year after joining, whereas a person in their 20’s would only be restricted from claiming for the same condition for only 3 months.
The best thing for pensioners and senior citizens in terms of medical aid, is to ensure they join a scheme long before they retire, ensuring they will be able to continue on this scheme as they get older.