BestMed Beat2 Network - Hospital Allocations

Please could you assist because I have had an incident on Monday night 15/04/2024 at whereby I had a sick child (4mths old) battling to breathe with flu congestion. I am on the BestMed Beat 2 network option. I had rushed the child at 11:30pm on the 15/04/2024 to Busamed Gateway private hospital as per the listing received from Bestmed for 2024 period and upon arrival I was told by the night shift nurse that they do not have the mandate to see to kids or babies at this hospital only adults. They are awaiting for some paperwork to be done for them to accept babies or kids and if she had assisted us it would have been ******* .The nurse came out to the car, had a look at the baby and said she was stable and assisted us by contacting contact eThekwini heart hospital in Nandi drive where they advised us to come through. My point is how did BestMed make BusaMed Gateway network hospital if they cannot treat babies and kids. Note that this hospital is about 15mins away from my home .The amazing part is that we have Mount Edgecombe life hospital in the Phoenix area which is 5 min away from my home but this was removed since Jan 2024 of the network. In a life and death situation this is detrimental to have a close by hospital that can service BestMed clients .You can imagine my horror when I was told by the nurse at BUSAMED Gateway hospital that they don’t see to babies or kids. We then left BusaMed Gateway hospital @ midnight to Ethekwini Heart hospital which was 15 km away...approx 20 min of driving we arrived at Ethekwini heart hospital as per listing from BestMed and was advised to proceed to triage room for the babies vitals to be checked while my husband liaised with the receptionist at the emergency desk. My husband was advised by the receptionist that BestMed network is not on their listing as a Service provider, he advised we would have to pay R13500 to R14000 payment should my baby(4 months old) be admitted , we then showed the receptionist the info listing from the medical aid app with regards to hospitals and showed him that Ethekwini Heart hospital are on the listing, he then said if the baby is admitted he would need a copy of that as proof and the hospital case manager and BestMed would need to resolve the issue .We were asked to wait in 1 of the consulting rooms awaiting for the trauma Doctor to see to our baby. When the doctor did arrive after 15 min, she spent less that 10 mins with our baby with a simple chest and breathing check up, provided us with a script for meds and we was sent home.

As a client of Bestmed worst service I ever received at the network hospitals mind you with a sick baby and late at night ,driving around trying to find hospitals to assist .Please can this be sent to higher authority to reconsider putting Mount Edgecombe life hospital back on the listing for the new year 2025 because we are unable to change networks during the year , it doesn’t make sense because I see Chatsworth still have Chatsmed Life hospital as a network hospital but why are we in Phoenix given all these hospitals which are way out of Phoenix .

I had Bestmed medical aid last year while pregnant and used Mount Edgecombe life hospital and doctors and this hospital had excellent service .I was not turned away for any treatment. BestMed also didn't do their homework for network hospitals for 2024 period that can treat babies or kids. MT Edgecombe Life hospital and Umhlanga Netcare hospital has a pediatric ward that is equipped to treat babies and kids but was removed from their network hospital for 2024 period. BestMed also didn't check with doctors on their medical rates because we are being treated by Bestmed network doctors that charge over and above medical rates and now we have to pay the shortfall, WHY. My opinion is that BestMed is only looking out for their interest and not their customers/clients. They went out looking for cheaper rates which the clients have to just accept. We need your help resolving this issue because the scary thing is that in a case of an emergency, my family might not make it to hospital in time for treatment due to the fact hospitals allocated for BestMed network clients/customers are ridiculously far away.