The need for primary healthcare

Our healthcare plans and hospital cover are designed to specifically address the issues of essential needs and affordability.

Approximately 9 million of the total population of 58 million people are currently covered by medical schemes or about 15% of the population. The reason for the low take up in the medical scheme environment is two-fold – firstly, medical schemes are prohibitively expensive and secondly, medical schemes cover largely in-patient hospitalisation benefits as opposed to primary healthcare benefits.

View our Primary Healthcare plans and Hospital Cover by choosing either Individual or Groups

Designing and pricing a simple set of primary healthcare benefits is an uncomplicated task. Delivering a real service is far more demanding.

In order to make our product as affordable as possible we have established networks of general practitioners, dentists, pharmacies, pathologists, radiologists and optometrists. Managing and expanding  provider networks is an ongoing and onerous effort and as such we have dedicated significant resources.

For emergency transport services we have partnered with ER24, undoubtedly one of South Africa’s top providers of emergency evacuation services. This includes a 24 hour call centre to deal with emergencies. The 24 hour call centre includes referrals to a medical hotline and trauma counselling.

One of our key differentiators is that all members are issued Unity Health membership cards. The membership card has the Unity Health and ER24 logo on it. The product has been designed to avoid any upfront or co-payments by members. When members visit their network provider, they simply present their card and ID, and the provider in turn submits the bill through to Unity Health for processing and payment.