Dear Customers
Prudential
has recently launched a new medical card PruValue Med.
I was
recently asked to give some talks to some of my clients company on the topic “What
is the difference between PruValue Med and other older medical plans ?”
As some of
you will be offered options to upgrade the plan. Let me tell you about the Benefit and Disadvantages of the
products
Benefit 1:-
Outpatient Cancer Drug Treatments
Cancer
treatments have well advanced over the years. Many cancer patients often go
thru traditional chemotherapy that is done as an inpatient and also often
leaves many side effects.
Thanks to
medical advances, there are now cancer drugs in the form of pills that can be
consumed on a daily basis. Many of this drugs are approved by FDA and are
proven to be more effective than chemotherapy while having very little of the
side effect. Survey taken is that nausea and hair loss are not as severe as the
traditional chemotherapy treatment.
Today, most
clients buy the drug and consume it on a daily basis to control and manage the
cancer.
However the
problem is that the costs of this treatments are REALLY Expensive. Someone once
shared it can costs RM8000-RM10,000 per MONTH. Yes that is RM120,000 per year
Can that be
true ? Please see the newspaper article published by the Star Recently.
THE BIG PROBLEM :-
Many insurance cannot Cover for outpatient cancer drugs
Yes that is true, many older
traditional medical cards cannot cover for outpatient cancer drugs. Why NOT ?
Outpatient Cancer Drug Treatments only came into the market around 5 years ago
and became popular in Malaysia in the last 2 years or so.
Because
insurance acts are created many years ago, they only recognized chemotherapy or
surgery as ways to cure cancer.
Thus there
is a GREAT NEED for insurance companies to revise their plans to include
Outpatient Cancer Drugs. PruValue Med was created to include all this modern
day treatment
Benefit 2 :- No
Annual Limit and “Unlimited” Life time treatment
Why do
people buy medical plans ?
The reason is simple “To ensure that
I can get the BEST treatment without worrying about the costs ?”
But in
reality do medical cards actually offer this. Let us take example of a long
illness like cancer
Illustration 1 :- Costs
of traditional Chemotherapy
Assuming we
are using traditional Chemotherapy. The cost is assuming per chemotherapy visit
is RM5000 (conservative). Chemotherapy is given in cycles and each cycle
is 5 times chemotherapy
So the costs is
RM5000 x 5 times per cycle = RM25,000
One year the costs can go up to RM100,000 (RM25,000 x 4)
Imagine if your
Medical Card yearly limit is just RM50,000. That means every year you
need to pay RM50,000 of your own money
Illustration 2:-
Outpatient Cancer Treatment using drugs
Assuming
that Outpatient Cancer Drugs are at RM10,000 per month
So the costs per year is
RM10,000 x 12 months = RM120,000
ASSUMING your medical card could even pay for this type of
treatments. If you had RM50,000 annual limit. You need RM70,000 of your own
cash
Here is why PruValue
Med is Awesome
PruValue
Med can pay for outpatient Cancer drug treatment and it has NO ANNUAL LIMIT.
Meaning it can easily pay the RM10,000 per month (RM120,000)
This is the sheer beauty of PruValue Med
Ok that’s the good news . How about the Disadvantages of the
Product ?
Disadvantages :- Slight
Price Increase and No Cash Allowances
Ok let us be honest . Would you
rather have a RM 1 Million yearly limit or a RM50,000 yearly limit?
With PruValue Med,
Prudential they are taking a 20 TIMES more liability a year and with
“unlimited” features they are charging around 20% price increase. Which I think
is very fair. By just paying RM20-RM50 per month more
Second slight disadvantage, the Insurance companies
following new guidelines are no longer selling medical plans where they pay
customers daily cash (RM100-RM400 daily) from living in the hospital. This I
also feel is fair as the industry moves away from “rewarding” customers for
staying long in the hospital.
Some customers just need to upgrade around RM20 per month
only
In Summary :-
I personally believe that PruValueMed is a more relevant
medical card to beat today’s rising medical costs and also handles the dreaded
diseases like cancer and kidney dialysis better
Good NEWS ! As of 25th June 2015, existing
Prudential customers can NOW Upgrade to PruValueMed
If you are looking for a medical card, I have done the
research on competitors and found no product that comes as close as beating
PruValue Med.
Thanks
Derek
Email derek.pru@gmail.com
Whatsapp 0178838268