Quick to take your money but takes forever to repay monies owed to you.

This is the second time that I am needing to get a refund from Bonitas Medical aid and again this is the seconcond time that I am COMPLETELY DISSAPOINTED by Bonitas Medical Fund. Firstly this year they decided that the hospital where my neurologist practices at is no longer on their network list. They still pay for the Neurologist, however if he wants to admit me then I have to go to a hospital almost 20Km away from there and see a new neurologist. Had to find that out earlier this year when I had to be admitted to hospital after having 30 Seizures in 4 days.

Then when I went to my original neurologist I had to same as ALL his patients pay out of pocket and then claim back from Bonitas. Bonitas last year said they will pay back part of the consultation howver when we changed the banking details for my medical aid plan, The person who filled in the information failed to do his/her job and only updated the debit order details (Of course make sure they ALWAYS get their money) and failed to update the refund information. We only found this out after having to follow up why after two weeks we still have not received the refund. Then I sent them a bank confirmation letter indicating ALL the banking information including the branch code. Finally I eventually got my refund.

This year I went to see the Dr, again and had to once again had to pay out of pocket. I sent in the documentation to Bonitas and eventually got a message stating that the claim has been accepted and that they will refund me a part of my fee. It is now 2 weeks later and I have still not received anything. The week before last I was informed that they will pay it on the next "payment run" that was last week Sunday. Nothing. Then I followed up again today and still nothing. Then today I phoned to hear no the payment has definately been approved however because Sunday was a public holiday (Wich it was not, the holidays was Friday and Monday) the payment run has been cancelled so I have to wait until the next payment run that they do not know when it will be and also do not know when they (Bonitas) will be doing the following payment run (Despite having phoned Bonitas themselves) and being told they may be paying tonight and they may be paying tomorow night or otherwise only next Sunday night but nobody knows when they (Bonitas) will be having the payment run. Now I have to wait untill Friday to see if the funds show otherwise it will show after Sunday (That will make it now 3 weeks that I have waited) and me being an SASSA Dissability grant recipeint it now means that I am now out of almost a R1000 for 3 weeks. I can not pay for my chronic medication because of this so they will now charge me interest on my account because of Bonitas and best of all it is a pharmacy that Bonitas forces us to use to not have a 30% co payment. So look out. Even though you phone Bonitas, you still will not speak to Bonitas as the people in their call center keep refering to "them" and "they" and also can not answer questions as to decisions that will be made by "Bonitas Medical Aid". This is redicilus and unbeleivable. When they take your money every month as soom as possible but when you have to receive any funds back from them there is always an issue that delays things by weeks as if we have all the money in the world and that you do not realy need the money that they have to refund you. They seem to think all their members are millionaires!