Billing a Mess

For the past two weeks I have experienced pure frustration with sorting out my medical aid account. It is very disappointing to state that one of the most expensive medical aid companies in South Africa do not have a decent accounting system in place which can automatically do monthly reconciliations and generate statements, and their employees in their billing department cannot even do simple math, use a calculator or draw up a manual statement. It makes you wonder how accurate our medical tax certificates are, and if they can even calculate interest on investments, bank accounts, and pension funds correctly which is way more advanced than simple reconciliations and drawing up statements.

You would expect that such a huge company will have a system that when a client phones them with a billing related issue they will be able to pull up your profile and give the detailed information related to the issue immediately, but no, you have to hold while the consultant in the billing department have to go through each months contribution you have made till she can pick up the issue which dates all the way back to July 2021. Yes, it took them an entire year and a half to figure this out and then did not even have the decency to communicate this to me. I discovered that they were planning on freezing my medical aid this month when I went on their portal to retrieve my medical tax certificate. They claim that the communication got lost in spam as I have a Gmail account, yet I have receive all their promotions and name it of the past two and a half years without any problems, it seems that only their mail on annual increases for both vitality and the medical aid seems to get lost in my spam.

I have asked the consultant to send me a statement so I can go check with my bank because it is over a year ago already, she told me that it will take them two working days to generate a statement after which a day later I have received twelve emails for each month and a thirteenth one with an incorrect statement. I wonder if that was to annoy the client even further.

On the statement for both July and August they have billed me the new increased amount which was never communicated to me of R5 020 and I paid them the previous years installment of R4 740, they stated that for each month I have paid R280 short, but also indicate that I did pay the shortfall of R280 for August later on in the month, so only the R280 for July was outstanding. For October 2021 they billed me incorrectly with R 6 102 and I made a payment of R3 902 for two people, yet they did not state that there was a short payment of R2 200, which would have been the case in accurate bookkeeping R6 102 -R3 902 = R2 200, yet my instalment for only two people from October was R3 902. In February 2022 they billed me R 6 184 for 3 people, stating that I only paid R5 184 and according to them this amount was short with R370. Now anyone who can do simple math will come to R6 184 - R5 184 = R1 000 short not R370 like they did.

When logging a second complaint on their portal to the principle officer stating that my previous issues was not resolved because their statement was an absolute joke a consultant contacted me and explained to me that I owed R280 for the short payment in July 2021, and that in February 2022 they deducted my vitality from my medical aid contribution thus my medical aid contribution was short with R370, yet my vitality contribution for 2022 was R430. For years I have done separate EFT payments for both Vitality and Discovery Medical Aid to the two required separate bank accounts. Not sure how their clever bookkeepers in their billing department could not pick that trend up, and for just that one month went ahead on own accord to deduct the vitality contribution from the medical aid contribution. I pointed this out to the consultant yesterday and told her I have no problem to pay the R280 short payment for July 2021 but they need to sort out the February issue because I did pay vitality separately for February like every other month for the past few years and they had no reason for deducting this from my medical aid contributions. Low and behold last night after the phone call of the afternoon I received a statement and yet the the vitality deduction form my medical aid contribution was not corrected. Guess the consultant did not have the time or inclination to investigate the issue by going into my vitality account to see if I have paid my vitality in February and then to correct their mistake of deducting another contribution for that month from my medical aid contribution.

This morning the principal officer contacted me asking if my issue was resolved after I have logged another complaint earlier in the morning, this time indicating all the payments I have made according to my bank statement for both the medical aid and Vitality from December 2021 till November 2022 to assist them with their accounting issues they have for February on my account. I said no, my issues was not resolved, and started to explain the problem. He rudely interrupted me saying that he does not want details, he only wants to know if my issue was resolved. I saw red, once again they wasted my time not doing their job and raised my stress levels unnecessary because they cannot do basic accounting, communicate properly, take the time to investigate concerns, and to then correct their mistakes.

Discovery needs to brush up on their communication and accounting systems. They are wasting clients time unnecessary. All this could have been resolved if the issue was indicated in detail on the clients portfolio so that your consultants can retrieve it easily when there is a dispute like this.

It is a pity that the service is so bad in South Africa that only when you log a complaint on Hello Peter, do companies spark and show a willingness to resolve concerns.