Discovery - Absolutely shocking

Quick summary before I write everything. Discovery promises full in hospital cover but once you are admitted they come up with a whole bunch of nonsense not to pay for most things that takes place in hospital, leaving you with a massive bill. The hospitals and minister of health made it mandatory to have a covid test done before being admitted to hospital, discovery refuses to pay for these tests. Getting pre approval for treatment is an absolute nightmare and they try everything within their power not to approve or pay. When you enquire anything at discovery they simply ignore you, absolutely terrible customer service. yet they expect you to pay the hefty monthly premium.

Full story below

3 years ago I became very ill and was admitted to hospital, it was very difficult to figure out what was wrong with me and I had to have quite a lot of tests done do be diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. Discovery left me with a hospital bill of over R60 000 when I was diagnosed. I fought them to the bitter end but they refused to pay the hospital, so I had to make a lot of debt to pay for something discovery advertises that they would cover (100% in hospital cover, absolute nonsense)

After being diagnosed by my specialist, one of the top hematologists in the southern hemisphere by the way, I could not get pre approval for monthly treatments that I had to have, otherwise I would die of organ failure. My doctor wrote a motivational letter to discovery together with my lab results explaining to them the urgency and that i would need monthly treatment for at least 12 months. Discovery declined and asked for additional blood tests to be done, so "their doctors" can look at it. who the hell are their doctors? and how dare they challenge the opinion and urgency of one of the top specialists in the field? ridiculous, not only did I have to go back for numerous tests for discovery to look at to be able to approve my 12 month treatment, but they MADE ME PAY for the tests that THEY ASKED FOR. I had to pay pathcare nearly R10 000 for all the tests that discovery requested. Again they refused to pay. And to top it all off, they only approved me for 6 months instead of the 12 months my doc asked for. After the 6 monthly treatments passed my condition became a little more stable but i had to continue the treatment plan, meaning i now had to do these expensive tests once again, for discovery to view and decide if they will or wont pay for my next treatments. again i was stuck with the bill for the testing, and discovery only approved me for 3 months, telling me i would need to have these tests done AGAIN and pay for them again.... Eventually they realized, after many tests and after leaving me with nearly R80k worth of hospital bills, they FINALLY approved my treatments for 12 months at a time. TERRIBLE

So now to my next complaint. When Covid hit, I still needed my monthly treatment in hospital. i dont have a choice. The hospital, as instructed by the minister of health, had to enforce a mandatory covid test before each hospital admission, meaning i had to have a covid test done every single month before my treatment. this is not my choice, this was the rule. Discovery tells me they only pay for two covid tests, and thereafter they will only pay if you tested positive? completely ignoring the fact that these tests are mandatory and HAS TO BE DONE. They then sent me a form for additional covid testing approval, cant remember the name of the form but I had to give this form to my doctor to complete, which he did. i sent it to discovery and they declined payment for the pre admission covid tests. leaving me with another R12 000 bill. I have disputed this and I am actually wanting to go to court about this, because I cant afford to keep paying for the loopholes that discovery continues to exploit. I have been reaching out to discovery to dispute this for nearly a month now, with absolutely no communication from them. but trust me, their R4k debit order will go off each month without fail.

I am absolutely disgusted by the service, attitude and general experience. I have all the paperwork from the hospitals and the nonsense from discovery on file. Can someone at discovery please contact me