Claim Pain

<p>My husband and I are (for the moment) members of the Discovery Medical Aid scheme, and have been members in good standing for many years. At the end of June, I went to the pharmacy to get prescribed medication .I was advised that the Discovery systems were offline and that I would need to pay cash and then claim back from Discovery. I didn't know what hell I was letting myself in for. I submitted my claim to Discovery on 28 June, no response received. On 13 July I followed up on the claim. On 15 July I receive an *********** and irrelevant response, relating to a previous dependent who was removed from the profile over 5 years ago, telling me (who has been a dependent for the last 4 years) that I need the old dependent's consent to do goodness knows what as this has nothing to do with my claim. We counter this pathetic email with a complaint that this is irrelevant to what we have communicated about and request somebody to phone us to communicate effectively about this matter. On 18 July we receive an email (note NO phone call) asking us to resend the claim. We duly do so. No progress. My husband received a call from a second consultant stating that Discovery is in the wrong and promising to remedy this, he knew nothing of the first consultant and we never heard from him again. With no feedback we request a call. On 24 July we receive a call from a consultant from the executive office in KZN apologising and requesting that we now for a third time send him the claim info. We duly send him the info on 24 July, he promises to remedy the matter in 3-4 days. No feedback and no payment of our claim again. On 31 July I email the consultant and ask him for an update on the matter. That email is ignored. Yesterday on 3 August my husband emails the consultant asking him to urgently call us in this regard. This morning the consultant calls us to say he has not received the attachment to my email dated 24 July, how does it take 2 follow up requests and a phone call a week and a half later for the consultant to simply communicate this to us. We have now resent the attachments again, but I am not holding my breath. I welcome any other medical aid to please contact me to discuss switching, I am glad that I don't have a high blood pressure problem as dealing with Discovery is stressful enough! But maybe after this ordeal I should go have my blood pressure measured. I wonder what would happen if we made Discovery wait 6 weeks pay their premium, just as we have waited for some half decent service on our claim.</p>