CPR CPR PHYSIO Aviator Foundation

Crew guide

Understanding your medical card

Two cards can offer the same headline benefit and behave completely differently. The shape of yours decides whether the price of a session matters to you at all — and it is the single thing most crew have never checked.

The two shapes of a medical card

Nearly every plan is one of these, and airlines differ — some run an annual pot, others use a per-case limit only, and a few combine the two. Read your own policy rather than a colleague’s. Tap to compare.

One pot for the whole calendar year

Crew at several major airlines will recognise this shape. A single pot of money per calendar year, shared across your GP visits, specialist visits, physiotherapy and other outpatient care. Investigations — X-ray, CT, blood tests, MRI — commonly sit in a separate pool of their own. When the shared pot is empty, you pay for everything yourself until it resets on 1 January.

Your one shared pot, part-way through a year
GP visits Specialist Physiotherapy Left for the rest of the year

Strictly it is one pooled limit shared by several lines — GP, specialist, physiotherapy and other outpatient care — while Investigation and Complementary Therapies typically carry a limit of their own. How big your pot is generally depends on your rank, and most schemes extend cover to a spouse and children as well, each usually drawing on their own entitlement. We do not publish rank-by-rank figures — they differ between airlines and they change — read them off your own statement, which shows exactly what is left on every line.

Here the amount matters, and that changes the question. On a visit-counting plan the price is not your problem. On a money plan it is: every dollar drawn is a dollar not available in November, so the thing worth weighing is how much treatment you actually receive for each dollar that leaves the pot. A session that draws less but delivers a short slot is not obviously the better deal, and a fuller session that draws more is not obviously the worse one. Some providers also quote a reduced rate through a card, which offsets part of that draw — which is exactly why it is worth comparing what you get, not just what it costs.
It has changed twice. This benefit used to be unlimited. Before the current pot it was counted by number of uses. If you are working from what a colleague told you two years ago, you are working from the wrong model.

Direct billing and pay-and-claim

Both are legitimate, and each suits a different situation. What matters is knowing which one you are using and what it does to your pot.

Direct billing / panel

Convenient, and often a negotiated rate

You show the card and walk out without paying. Panel providers have agreed rates with the insurer, so the headline price is frequently lower than the same clinic charges privately — a genuine advantage, particularly for routine care.

The trade-off is usually in what comes with that rate: panel appointments can be harder to get at short notice, slots may be shorter, and the service tier or the range of equipment included can differ from a private booking. Worth asking before you assume two sessions are the same session.

Pay and claim

You see every number before it moves

You settle with the clinic and claim it back. You see the real price, the receipt matches the treatment, and nothing leaves your annual pot without you knowing the amount. Outside an insurer’s own panel, reimbursement is commonly a percentage of what you paid rather than all of it — often around half, though this varies between plans and providers.

The question worth asking either way: how much comes off my annual limit? That figure is not always the same as what the provider receives, and it is the number that decides how much cover you have left in November. Ask your card provider what will be deducted, and ask any clinic what their quoted rate includes. Under this Scheme, half of each session fee is settled with earned Foundation credits, so less leaves your pocket before you claim — see the full breakdown, or rehearse the claim form.

Two questions worth asking any clinic

Including us. They take a minute and they decide what you actually get for your money.

“Do you have a card rate?”

Many clinics, ours included, quote a lower rate to card holders or panel members than they do privately. That is a real saving and it is worth asking for by name rather than assuming the published price is the only one.

“What does that rate include?”

This is the one people skip. A discounted rate can come with a shorter slot, a narrower choice of appointment times, or a different tier of service and equipment. None of that is hidden — it simply is not volunteered. Ask, then compare like with like.

Flying for Cathay?

Reading your remaining balance, the claim steps and the CMT benefit are all portal-specific, so they live on their own page rather than cluttering this one.

Cathay: balance, claims and CMT

Where the real numbers are, the claim sequence for a physiotherapy session, and how the Complementary Therapies benefit works alongside it.

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