Here is HTT’s calculator for the 2012 Discovery Health plans

Yes, it’s that time of the year again – time to choose your Discovery Health plan….all those options and all that paperwork to read and understand…
If you are already on a Discovery Health plan you don't have to do anything if you want to stay on the same plan for 2012.
If, however, you would like to change to another plan, please let your employer know as soon as possible as they must send us your new health plan details by 9 December 2011.

This article might save you a lot of reading and paging through all the web pages on the Discovery web site.

The www.discovery.co.za web site contains detailed information about each plan and the costs.
The new plans can be seen by clicking on the panels on the left hand side of the page: ‘Discovery Health->2012 Plans we offer’, and then select the plan that you’re interested in.
Unfortunately, the new pages describing the plans have accordion-like sections that expand and collapse so you can’t print the pages :(  That means you need to read them online and keep on clicking to expand and collapse, which is rather irritating!

But, don’t despair when HTT is near ;)  I’ve managed to turn off the accordion scripting (using an add on for Firefox called NoScript) and here are the documents for offline reading for your convenience… 
[700KB]: DiscoveryHealthPlans2012.zip

{Thanks to www.mediafire.com for hosting the file for free!}  

  

So, how much does each plan cost?



Get more info from the Discovery web site’s “Compare our plans link”.

HTT’s Discovery Health Plan 2012 calculator:
I have collated all the information on the various plans into a spreadsheet (calculator) and you can fill in the number of people in your family and allows you to compare the costs of each plan (in a table and in a chart).

 
      

Download HTT’s calculator that will assist you in costing the various options [1.2MB]: DiscoveryHealthOptions2012calculator.xls

Open the calculator to assist with narrowing your choice of plan as follows:
Use the Discovery web site’s “Compare our plans link” (and the pyramids in each plan’s pdf) to compare the plans - note the missing parts of the pyramids to see "what's missing" from each plan.
Note too, that the size of each segment shows smaller ATBs and larger SPGs.

So, if you want a plan with "out of hospital" cover, then you need a plan that has an MSA (Medical Savings Account) - so don't choose the Core plans (since Core plans don't provide MSA).
See this posting for explanations of these terms: Are you MSA, ATB, SPG‘ed out with Discovery Health – here’s a brief explanation of these terms
To summarise: If you need that "parachute" to kick in when out of hospital expenses get too much then you need a plan that offers the ATB facility (Above Threshold Benefit): so select from the Executive, Comprehensive or Priority plans (either: Executive, Classic Comprehensive, Essential Comprehensive, Classic Priority or Essential Priority).
Note: Priority plan has "limited ATB"
The Self Payment Gap is the amount that you need to pay once you have run out of MSA.
If you want a small SPG (Self Payment Gap) then you need to select one of the Comprehensive plans. If you want zero SPG (Self Payment Gap) then you need to select the Executive plan (as you can see the smaller the gap, the more expensive the plan becomes).

The DeltaSaver plans are similar to the Saver plans; and
the DeltaCore plans are similar to the Core plans except (mainly) that you are limited to the Delta network of hospitals (and you pay about 25% less)

Using the spreadsheet (using the 'Figures2012' worksheet):
[Please read the disclaimer at the top of the spreadsheet :) ]
Modify the following “purple” cells to suit your situation i.e. number of dependants, Vitality, Discovery card.

Compiling the spreadsheet has highlighted some points which I did not understand previously and I am sure the following pointers will assist you in choosing which plan is best for you:
· There are 8 categories of cover: Executive, Comprehensive, Priority, Saver, Delta Saver, Core, Delta Core and KeyCare.
· Each of these categories sometimes have sub-categories: Classic, Classic Delta, Essential, Essential Delta, and Coastal.
The above 2 statements are very important in understanding how Discovery health plans have been organised… so read them and understand how categories have been split into sub-categories. 
· The "Saver" and “Core” plans are cheaper mainly because they have no ATB (Above Threshold Benefit) which means when your out-of-hospital expenses have used up your MSA (Medical Savings Account) then you will need to pay all out of hospital costs out of your (after tax) pocket.  All the other plans have an ATB which kicks in as soon as you have paid a certain amount (the “gap”).
· The “Priority” plans are cheaper mainly because they have co-payments for some hospital procedures (see 'PrioritySeries2011.pdf' for details)
· If you only need a ‘hospital plan’, then the “core” or "saver" plans are for you… "Core" have no MSA nor ATB and "Saver" plans have a small MSA - remember that out of hospital expenses can add up very quickly e.g. MRI scans etc. and can wipe out the monthly savings of being on a cheaper plan (although a maximum of R1,800 will be paid out of your MSA (or out of your pocket if you're on the "Core" plan), the remainder comes out of your in-hospital benefit)
· “Classic” and “Essential” plans have almost the same in-hospital cover except for the rate paid: Classic pays up to 300% of the Discovery Health rate while Essential pays up to the Discovery Health rate. [In my experience, the doctors will charge the maximum that they can! So, if you have cover for the 300% then that’s what they’ll charge. It is no indication of their “rate”]
· The MSA amount is fixed according to the plan you're on (25% or 15% of your contribution).
· The “prescribed medicine” sub-limit has some widely differing benefits so study these carefully when selecting your plan.
· Check this year’s benefit usage by logging in on the Discovery web site: http://www.discovery.co.za –> Discovery Health  »  Benefits and cover  »  Benefits used.  This will give you an idea of what cover you have used this year (Note: the past usage is no indication of next year’s needs).

Bottom line: nobody can tell you which plan you need to take – it’s your decision based on i) how much you can afford vs ii) how much you think you will need cover vs iii) how  much you think you can cover yourself from your own emergency funds.

Use the calculator to compare the pyramids (cover differences) and graphs to compare costs and pdf’s to compare each plan’s detail.

If you see any errors in this article, or in the calculator, or suggestions for improvement, then please let me know so that everyone can benefit) by leaving a comment or emailing me: HandyTechTipper at gmail.com

See here for other HTT (HandyTechTipper) calculators:
http://handytechtips.blogspot.com/search?q=calculator

See here for more info on Discovery:
http://handytechtips.blogspot.com/search?q=discovery

Buying electricity via mobile cell phone or online [Solved]

There’s only one thing that I hate doing more than putting petrol in my car – that’s buying electricity… the pain of drawing cash, then going to the local cafe or garage to get that electricity token is sooo painful!  But that was until I found other ways of buying electricity without even getting into my car :)
 
You still get your free units per month and there are no extra costs.

Most of these sites allow you to purchase using your credit card.

After registering I can now purchase electricity (for no extra charge) using my credit card. I can use my PC or my cell phone's browser or use SMS to purchase.
Using my credit card is much more convenient (no more queuing for cash, and for purchasing the electricity), and so it's safer too! [those ATMs are becoming dangerous]
Additionally, if I run out of electricity in the middle of the night then I can purchase more by sending an SMS from home.
Oh, and the cherry on the top is that the bill comes at the end of the month along with "reward points" and even cash back discount.


Here is a list of sites that I’ve found that cater for City of Cape Town electricity:
FNB mobile: dial *120*321# from your cell phone and navigate thru the menus.
 

https://new.easypay.co.za/bmeter.aspx    

www.energy.co.za     (not accepting new registrations)


www.paycity.co.za    
(Via SMS: SMS "secret code cvv amount" to 41658 to buy electricity)

www.powertime.co.za [currently offline for Cape Town electricity purchases] register meter number and pay by credit card.


http://www.cellpower.co.za/consumer   No credit card purchases, but EFTs are processed under 5 minutes (24/7). Also offers airtime.

www.ibuy.co.za you can save your setting so that you can easily buy from your phone
 


http://www.prepaid24.com/index.php?comp=content2&page=electricity
  There’s even a lucky draw and you could win your electricity for free (PowerWinna)



Outside Cape Town: 
http://www.prepaidelectricitymeters.co.za/# 
http://www.prepaidmobionline.co.za/municipalities.html

Polycom IP SoundStation IP 5000 call lasts exactly 20 seconds and then disconnected [SOLVED]

A colleague had this nasty problem that he managed to solve – he found lots (hundreds) of people on the Internet had the same problem but there were no solutions out there – so I convinced him to share how he solved the nasty problem:

The problem:
Polycom IP SoundStation IP 5000 - calls last exactly 20 seconds and then they are disconnected.

The logs on the SwitchVox PABX showed the following error when tracing the SIP messages passing between PBX and Polycom IP 5000.  This is the error code that I suspected was causing the issue:

(Critical Response) -- See doc/sip-retransmit.txt


It took a while, but changing the protocol that IP5000 uses to connect to the PABX from TCP/IP to UDP seems to have fixed the problem - now the calls work properly :)
It now also connects to the SwitchVox PABX immediately compared to previously when using TCP/IP it took at least 10 seconds. 
So now, once the phone is plugged in and boots up, it immediately connects and calls longer than 10 seconds are now no problem!

 


For others trying to figure out how to log onto the phone’s web page to change the settings:
use username (upper case ‘P’):  Polycom
and
password:  456 
(This is the default username and password)