Diabetics must live with a myriad of symptoms. This includes fatigue, blurred vision, nausea and slow healing, just to name a few.
What’s worse is that often people living with diabetes must pay huge medical bills, creating even more mental and financial strain.
The typical diet from the west and our more inactive lifestyles have led to a substantial increase in instances of diabetes. Please read this if you suffer from this disorder.
Diabetics in South Africa and the issues that face them
Scientists estimate that 78% of diabetics are not treated, or remain undiagnosed in Africa. The basic problem is that the illness can progress without one realising it.
The Prognosis for Diabetics
It is a deadly disease which acts slowly, but the damage is severe. If found early enough, it can be controlled by changing your diet. But sometimes, even that is not enough.
Indeed, for most people, the disease develops to the extent where medical treatment is critical.
Thus, this will require the patient to take lots of medication for the rest of their life. However, proper management of the disease and regular medical consultations are mandatory.
In the event the disease is not controlled, the effects of the long-term damage can range from a decline in eyesight, renal failure, and diabetic neuropathy.
Diabetics do not heal quickly, and neural damage caused by the disease can lead to serious infections.
Diabetes – What does this mean later in life?
If you manage to live healthily, you can keep the disease in check and lessen the symptoms.
However, if infections are severe, especially in one’s limbs, it can lead to the development of gangrene, often resulting in amputations and prosthetics.
The renal breakdown may make it necessary to undergo dialysis or the need of kidney transplants. With such procedures being extremely expensive.
Won’t my medical aid cover me?
By law, your medical aid must pay the minimum prescribed benefits for the treatment of diabetes.
Further, your medical aid must not deduct these costs from your medical savings account because it is a chronic illness.
Having said that, the health plan set limits on where you can get your treatment, and they can also restrict cover to only the standard medical aid tariffs.
This means that you can still get medication. But you will be paying for it personally.
Such that if your doctor charges more than what your basic plan has set, you are forced to pay for the difference.
Gap cover for diabetics
Living with diabetes can be quite expensive, and hospital costs are even more so. You might find yourself in a position where your aid will only pay for certain procedures. Thus, they do not pay for the full expense of prosthetics.
Indeed, a common mistake is that the health plan will foot the entire cost of treatment.
While that theory is true, most policies will only pay out the standard health insurance cover as stipulated in the policy.
Conclusion
The main challenge is that doctors charge way more than the standard health plan can afford. With patients required to pay any shortfalls.
Thus for total peace of mind, diabetes patients should take a gap cover as a necessity.
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