Lung Cancer Patient Struggle

Think twice before you join "BestMed". My dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Small Cell lung cancer in December 2017 (and no he's not a smoker for what it's worth). Since the start we've been struggling for BestMed to cover the cost of the oxygen machine that we have at home. Their "excuse" is, his lung capacity levels are above the threshold. It's funny that competitors such as Discovery give you an oxygen machine when they hear the key words "lung cancer". My dad's contribution every month is R5200 and then oxygen machine is about R1000 each month. Having cancer you obviously go for chemo/radiation and need to have scans done to determine where the cancer is located and whether it has shrunk or not. So with BestMed they specify you only have 3 scans a year... So after the 3rd scan they wanted my dad to pay R17k for another scan. Thank goodness our oncologist is on the board at BestMed and said it should be covered under the oncology benefit. The doctor had to write a letter for the scans to be covered under the oncology benefit.. Again, according to the doctors at the hospital, Discovery covers this automatically under the oncology benefit. BestMed tries to get out of every little "benefit" you have with some sort of fine print or with some sort of lie. Please think carefully when choosing them. #WorstMed