13 April 2022: Healthcare–The Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS), largest restricted medical scheme, is a proud to partner of the 2022 Rand Show, host of the country’s most loved lifestyle exhibition platforms.

The South African family is at the cornerstone of the Scheme's work and this partnership comes at an opportune time as majority of our members and their families from all walks of life have been locked down for over 2 years. With the growing challenges around mental health and wellness, the Rand Show presents a relaxed platform for education, entertainment, health and wellness for families.

The Scheme aims to use the Rand Show to educate members on their benefit options and inform them of the expanded wellness offering of multivitamins amongst others. As South Africa’s largest restricted Scheme, GEMS has the lowest non-healthcare expenditure which means more benefits for members and their beneficiaries. The Scheme’s flagship benefit options, Tanzanite One and Emerald Value Option (EVO), continue to perform exceptionally well, which serves to highlight the outstanding service that GEMS provides to members. This is also evidence of the fact that GEMS remains a member-centric scheme which is deeply connected to the needs of its members.

GEMS aims to ensure that contributions remain low to provide access to quality healthcare for the lowest possible rates, while providing rich benefits to its members. The Scheme’s EVO remains its best performing option, as it has the lowest monthly contribution increase among all options, which make sense for members to stay or switch to this option. The option is designed to minimise member exposure to out-of-pocket payments, which remains a major challenge for those who belong to medical schemes. EVO is more affordable because members make use of a network of healthcare providers and nominate a general practitioner of their choice to coordinate their healthcare needs.

GEMS invites all members and prospective members of the public service who qualify to join the scheme to visit the Rand Show, and most importantly, consider their family’s healthcare needs and choose the cover they are likely to need. More importantly, public service employees on employment levels one to five are encouraged to take advantage of the Tanzanite One benefit option as they may qualify for 100% subsidy of their contributions.