WATCH | Ambledown's 2024 offering to include gap cover for new cancer drugs

Even for those who have medical cover, the rising costs of health care have created a substantial gap between what the medical aid pays and service providers charge for treatments. As its name suggests, gap cover was created to bridge this difference.

Ambledown Financial Services, one of the leading providers of comprehensive and progressive gap cover plans, recently launched its 2024 product offering during a virtual event, hosted in partnership with Business Day — watch the recording above.

Highlights included benefit increases, premium rates and policy additions, such as the extension of Ambledown's cover to include several cutting-edge cancer treatments.

This spells new hope for the growing number of cancer patients in SA, which has the third-highest instance of cancer cases and deaths on the continent.

“The extensions covering the new cancer treatments are particularly important as projections show that African mortality rates from cancer are set to double by 2030,” says Michael Emery, marketing executive at Ambledown.  

“Both medical aids and providers of gap cover are under a strong moral obligation to keep on top of advances in medical treatments and protocols and, after investigation, to add the ones that show promise to their cover.

“Some of these groundbreaking [cancer] therapies are already in effect to the benefit of [Ambledown] policyholders. We are delighted to be leading from the front in this regard.”

Another important new development, says Emery, is that Ambledown's claims processes have been streamlined for providers and members. 

“We have eliminated bottlenecks and refined payments to healthcare providers and members. Working with our updated customer relationship management system and new machine-learning algorithms, our team settles claims faster than ever without compromising the attention each claim deserves,” he says.

“We also have a new virtual assistant coming soon, AmChat, which is built on the ChatGPT engine, to give members and brokers instant answers to their service-related queries.”

_{Ambledown Financial Services is authorised financial services provider No.10287. Gap cover is not a substitute for medical scheme membership.}