Can Diabetics get gap cover? I am a pre-diabetic and today we are going to discuss that.
If I don’t watch myself, I could easily transition to full-blown, adult-onset diabetes.
As diseases go, diabetes doesn’t feature much. It’s not a flashy illness – in fact, you could have diabetes right now and not know about it.
And that is part of what makes it so scary. In the opening stages, the disease seems benign. Maybe you need to use the loo more, and maybe you are losing weight. These are not necessarily factors that will have you scurrying off to the doctor’s, are they?
Can Diabetics get Gap cover?
Yes, they can. Your medical aid will provide some degree of cover. Exactly how much cover this entails depends on what plan you are on.
The good news is that diabetes is one of the diseases that they are obliged to treat.
The initial stages of the disease might be so mild as to be unnoticeable. It is as the disease advances that you see exactly how dangerous is it.
Left untreated, complications related to the late stage disease are blindness, neuropathy, slow wound healing and the potential development of gangrene, and kidney failure.
Treatments can slow the disease but cannot stop it completely. You must monitor your condition for the rest of your life. If you do not, even with treatment, you could be looking at amputations, loss of eyesight, etc.
There will now be some of you who agree that it is a dangerous disease but that they won’t be able to catch it. Want a bet?
In conjunction with lifestyles that are becoming less active, the current Western diet is full of unrefined carbs which make the ideal conditions for Diabetes.
Only around 22% of diabetes cases show up in Africa.
If you are overweight, do no exercise, eat refined carbs and have a family history of the disease, welcome to your future.
Your prognosis
What you do not mess with this disease. While diet may help with control during the early stages, should the disease progress, you need medication for the rest of your life.
Medical intervention will become necessary at some stage. You need access to specialist doctors, medication, possibly dialysis and maybe even prosthetics.
Medical Aid
Your medication, issued on a chronic basis won’t affect your day to day claims limits. 100% of the standard medical aid rate covers you for hospital treatment.
This means that you may need to either settle for a hospital/ doctor that is second-rate or you could foot a huge bill.
And check your policy documents as related to dialysis and prosthetics. You may not have quite as much cover as you would think.
Gap Cover and the Diabetic
So, let’s say that you don’t want just the barest minimum possible cover. Let’s say that you want to ensure that you have the option for a good prosthesis if you need it.
Having gap cover ensures that you will get the help that you need when you need it. Gap cover pays the extra amount that is not going to be settled by your medical aid.
And, best of all, you don’t have to worry about being excluded because you are a diabetic. You will still qualify for cover, but you may need to wait for a year before claiming.
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