Medical Aid Comparison & Selection Wizard

TheOracle

TheOracle

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I have built a wizard which compares 61 medical aid plans from 10 South African schemes using the published 2026 contribution tables and then selects the best one for you.

Anyone interested can have a look here: https://southafricafacts.co.za/medical-aid-comparator/

Most existing SA medical aid comparator. Hippo, Medical Aid Online, every broker site, they all hide the real numbers behind a phone-number form, then route you to a commissioned broker who tries to upsell.

The tool I just put up does the opposite. It runs entirely in your browser, uses the published 2026 contribution tables, and tells you which plans actually fit your household without anyone phoning you afterwards.
 
SHL said:
Genesis is looking very appealing compared to what I'm paying with Discovery.
Click to expand...
I've been with Genesis for years, never had any issues, and their rates are pretty good.
 
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Sites like Hippo have click baits where some offer amazingly low premiums to be the first and then you discover it does not exist .
 
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TheOracle said:
I have built a wizard which compares 61 medical aid plans from 10 South African schemes using the published 2026 contribution tables and then selects the best one for you.

Anyone interested can have a look here: https://southafricafacts.co.za/medical-aid-comparator/

Most existing SA medical aid comparator. Hippo, Medical Aid Online, every broker site, they all hide the real numbers behind a phone-number form, then route you to a commissioned broker who tries to upsell.

The tool I just put up does the opposite. It runs entirely in your browser, uses the published 2026 contribution tables, and tells you which plans actually fit your household without anyone phoning you afterwards.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this.

I've been looking at options as Discovery is becoming far too pricy.
 
TheOracle said:
I have built a wizard which compares 61 medical aid plans from 10 South African schemes using the published 2026 contribution tables and then selects the best one for you.

Anyone interested can have a look here: https://southafricafacts.co.za/medical-aid-comparator/

Most existing SA medical aid comparator. Hippo, Medical Aid Online, every broker site, they all hide the real numbers behind a phone-number form, then route you to a commissioned broker who tries to upsell.

The tool I just put up does the opposite. It runs entirely in your browser, uses the published 2026 contribution tables, and tells you which plans actually fit your household without anyone phoning you afterwards.
Click to expand...

This is really, really cool. I am happy that someone else is putting something together to bring more clarity to shoppers of South African medical aid plans. This makes me happy. In an ideal world, South African medical aid providers would be legally bound to some forms of pricing transparency laws, and mandated to bring down their 40+ confusing plans down to a handful of clearly distinguishable plans. Its always been a frustrating process to determine which medical aid plan works. When I was still in South Africa, I did not bother comparing plans or calling healthcare consultancies like Hippo, etc because medical aid plans are designed to be confusing. Your project sets my heart on fire!

I also love that you cite your sources of information, add a disclaimer and do not use childish messaging like "its the hidden sauce". If you cite sources, add a disclaimer, does this generally make it more palleatable to use publicly available data even when T's and C's may not be clear or have an explicit prohibitation?

This is interesting, because a few years back, I did build a "prototype" app, which tackles this problem in another dimension, but I lacked significant data, and perhaps the public exposure. Loads of hot potato questions as well. Thinking about it now, perhaps I could have partnered with people to "fill in the gaps". Nonetheless, I did write a medium.com about it (with videos, technical implementation details and source code for one part of the project), to share my approach with hopes that someone else can see what I tried, what problems I ran into, what tools like these should do, and what could be improved. Not sure if it is something that might be of interest to you.
 
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koeks525 said:
This is really, really cool. I am happy that someone else is putting something together to bring more clarity to shoppers of South African medical aid plans. This makes me happy. In an ideal world, South African medical aid providers would be legally bound to some forms of pricing transparency laws, and mandated to bring down their 40+ confusing plans down to a handful of clearly distinguishable plans. Its always been a frustrating process to determine which medical aid plan works. When I was still in South Africa, I did not bother comparing plans or calling healthcare consultancies like Hippo, etc because medical aid plans are designed to be confusing. Your project sets my heart on fire!

I also love that you cite your sources of information, add a disclaimer and do not use childish messaging like "its the hidden sauce". If you cite sources, add a disclaimer, does this generally make it more palleatable to use publicly available data even when T's and C's may not be clear or have an explicit prohibitation?

This is interesting, because a few years back, I did build a "prototype" app, which tackles this problem in another dimension, but I lacked significant data, and perhaps the public exposure. Loads of hot potato questions as well. Thinking about it now, perhaps I could have partnered with people to "fill in the gaps". Nonetheless, I did write a medium.com about it (with videos, technical implementation details and source code for one part of the project), to share my approach with hopes that someone else can see what I tried, what problems I ran into, what tools like these should do, and what could be improved. Not sure if it is something that might be of interest to you.
Click to expand...
Hi there, thanks for the feedback and kind words.

At the moment, I'm not doing app development. Maybe it's something I'll look into once I'm tired of web-based tools.
 
This is a very useful comparison tool.
I wonder if there is any way of finding out each scheme's tariff or scheme rates. Most of them state that their in-hospital and specialist benefits are based on a multiple of their tariff rates but it is impossible to work out exactly what that means in Rand terms. Even using the same multiple, one scheme could reimburse specialists at say R600 per consultation and another at R1 000 if their scheme rates differ.
 
quite a decent tool, this subject area is so complex though I wouldn't even know how to verify the output

upside: apparently I'm already on at least the 2nd most efficient Discovery plan for my needs, sadly it must be Discovery to get the company contribution
 
pb41 said:
This is a very useful comparison tool.
I wonder if there is any way of finding out each scheme's tariff or scheme rates. Most of them state that their in-hospital and specialist benefits are based on a multiple of their tariff rates but it is impossible to work out exactly what that means in Rand terms. Even using the same multiple, one scheme could reimburse specialists at say R600 per consultation and another at R1 000 if their scheme rates differ.
Click to expand...
Sadly, this information is kept private - most medical aid companies do not make this information public. Medical professionals do know what the rand rate is for some medical aid companies. Confidentiality agreements are also in the mix here.

I did some research into this problem a few years ago and found that only a handful of medical aid companies "publicly" list this information. Users can find the info if they search for it, but it is designed for healthcare professionals. Other medical aid companies claim that publicly sharing this information is too complex. Some medical aid companies state that they use the NHRPL rate + inflation rate to set their reimbursable rates for medical procedures. I wrote a detailed article about this on medium.com (covers both non-technical and technical background) and built a prototype web app (see videos one and two for a demo). I had plans to include some data from hospitals that have the info, but again, limited public data and there exists a grey area as to what is, or is not deemed as fair usage of public data. It was a fun project overall.

There was also a Masters thesis I read during the time, where the author also touched on the medical aid pricing situation in South Africa, as part of their law programme - it was a nice read (see: https://repository.up.ac.za/items/dde6d583-b72b-4c3e-b9c2-031674934511).
 
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how is it it shows me no plans available for me? I should be swamped by choices,
being with ZERO medical conditions, healthy Male, just turned 40,

on Disco Essential delta saver right now, cheapest with medical savings plan, and add vitality,
 
Can see Genesis getting a lot of new signups :laugh:

Great tool, doesn't help outliers like me though, who have a chronic condition only covered by comprehensive plans...
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
how is it it shows me no plans available for me? I should be swamped by choices,
being with ZERO medical conditions, healthy Male, just turned 40,

on Disco Essential delta saver right now, cheapest with medical savings plan, and add vitality,
Click to expand...
Let me know the values you used, and I will have a look for you.
 
well this is interesting - currently with momentum

entered same values on your system as well as on momentum's

yours offers this:
Screen Shot 2026-06-05 at 22.07.39.png





momentum presents this:







Screen Shot 2026-06-05 at 22.07.21.png



staggering difference - seems i need to dig deeper.

having said that, i used to have my mother covered as a dependant - during the period end 2016 to end 2019 she underwent multiple surgeries etc - was very very complex situation.
momentum forked out R5.6m without issue.

over the last 24months of so with my cardiac issues, i have cost them around R850k - excl a bucket of chronic meds every month (probably totalling R100k over the period).

so mother dear & i have cost momentum around R6.5m in medical costs between end 2016 and now.
total med scheme contributions over the period is around R4.3m
med costs - scheme contributions = R2.2m (loss to momentum).

while the cost comparison between genesis & momentum is rather breathtaking (R3500pm vs R10 000pm), i have to wonder if genesis will perform like momentum has.

need to dig & dig some more !!
 
Grant said:
well this is interesting - currently with momentum

entered same values on your system as well as on momentum's

yours offers this:
View attachment 1913143





momentum presents this:







View attachment 1913142



staggering difference - seems i need to dig deeper.

having said that, i used to have my mother covered as a dependant - during the period end 2016 to end 2019 she underwent multiple surgeries etc - was very very complex situation.
momentum forked out R5.6m without issue.

over the last 24months of so with my cardiac issues, i have cost them around R850k - excl a bucket of chronic meds every month (probably totalling R100k over the period).

so mother dear & i have cost momentum around R6.5m in medical costs between end 2016 and now.
total med scheme contributions over the period is around R4.3m
med costs - scheme contributions = R2.2m (loss to momentum).

while the cost comparison between genesis & momentum is rather breathtaking (R3500pm vs R10 000pm), i have to wonder if genesis will perform like momentum has.

need to dig & dig some more !!
Click to expand...
That's a pretty high plan on momentum. I susoect you'll find besides a savings component, you likely had access to a ATB? That makes a big differance with Day to Day and specialist care.
 
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