Gems Waiting Period for Pregnancy

What is the Gems waiting period for pregnancy? How long do you need to wait before you can access maternity related care from Gems? Gems is the Government Employees Medical Scheme. It’s one of the biggest providers of medical aid in South Africa. Like every other company of this nature, Gems imposes waiting periods on treatment for new members. So, what is the Gems waiting period for maternity care?

Gems waiting period for maternity

Gems will cover your pregnancy if it happens after you are already a member. However, if you join after already being pregnant, that particular pregnancy will not be covered.

What does this mean?

The general waiting period for new Gems members is 90 days from the day of joining. However, in terms of pregnancy, Gems appears to be a bit generous than most other medical aid companies.

With most, the waiting period is up to 12 months. With others, the waiting period is 10 months. We have previously written on the Hollard waiting period for pregnancy, which is 10 months.

You may be wondering why there are waiting periods for pregnancy in the first place. We noted in the above that if you bring your pregnancy when joining Gems, they will not cover it.

The reason for this is to protect other members. Should people be allowed to join while already pregnant, then many would simply join then before leaving as soon as they are done with their maternity care.

That’s not very feasible, considering the high cost of pregnancy care. It can reach as high as R60000 or more should complications arise. So, the waiting period is there for protecting other members.

We have already noted that Gems medical aid is fairly generous when it comes to maternity cover for members. As long as you get pregnant after you have joined, they will cover you, which is not the case for other medical aid companies.

Summary

This article, was dedicated was dedicated to giving you the Gems waiting period for pregnancy. We noted that Gems is the biggest provider of medical aid for civil servants in South Africa. With regards to pregnancy, the company is fairly generous. They will cover you as long as you fall pregnant after joining the scheme. However, they will not cover any pregnancy that happened before joining.

Find the Outsurance home insurance contact number