Appalling service

I joined Discovery Health 17 years ago with no pre-existing medical conditions. I developed these conditions 2+ years after joining. In November 2022, I had an unpaid debit order, received a letter from Discovery, and called them within the stipulated timeframe disclosed in the letter. I requested a simple plan change, emailed all the relevant forms, requested a refund of the medical savings, and told the agent via a telephone call to deduct all outstanding amounts from the medical aid savings, to which the agent agreed and said it was possible. Various calls to Discovery took place between December and January. I called in January to query why my debit order was not deducted which was due the 1 January 2023. I spoke to various departments and was told that my policy was cancelled in October 2022. None of the agents took ownership of my complaint and sent me to different departments. One agent advised me that they cannot deduct outstanding amounts from the medical aid savings and that some bank form had to be sent to me to complete when I requested the plan change. I was then transferred to sales to re-join and slapped with a 12-month waiting period for pre-existing medical conditions, which means I would need to pay R1800+ per month for my chronic medication. Sales advised me I could pay around twenty + thousand to reactivate my policy and they could not explain what this amount was for. The complaints agent who later dealt with my complaint stated my policy was cancelled in January and the sales department does not have access to view outstanding amounts on my client profile. I escalated my complaint via the Discovery website The outcome of the complaint is as follows: As a client, it is my responsibility to ask for a reference number with every telephonic interaction with Discovery’s agents. Since I failed to do so, they are not able to locate the call recording relating to the discussion of the premium deduction from the Medical Aid savings. It is not their agent’s responsibility to provide a reference number if they are not asked for one by the client. In my understanding, my medical aid number is my reference number, and in all my interactions with various agents, not one of them even mentioned or offered a reference number, surely one of the agents would have. I posed this question, that this mean a customer can call in, give their medical aid number, and the agent can pretend to assist the client, then log nothing on their system, and Discovery would not be able to trace this call? to which the complaints agent could not respond. It is the client's responsibility to check if their debit orders are paid, which I did, and this prompted my calls to Discovery in January 2023. Their finance team made numerous calls to chase the outstanding premium of November, as per the notes on their system. No calls were received on my end, as this would have prompted me to pay the unpaid debit order and I would have queried why the amount cannot be deducted from the medical aid savings, as discussed with the agent, and what more I was **** to about. It would have been a simple transaction of doing an EFT for outstanding amounts had I known I was **** to by this particular agent. The complaints agent advised various emails were sent to me regarding the outstanding premiums. I told her that I do not have a record of these emails only the ones that state that I owe R1800 for chronic medication that was not paid by Discovery. I explained to her which emails I had and requested the ones that I did not have. I was told that they cannot send them, as it is the client’s responsibility to check their emails. No thorough investigation is done to get a holistic overview of the complaint as the complaint’s agent has certain constraints to fully investigate the matter.

Everything is the client’s responsibility, and Discovery relieves its agents from all accountability and responsibility. The first-line agents are not equipped for first-call resolution and the client has to do all the follow-up calls and investigations.