Discovery Health does not honour their word.

On 17 January 2022 my surgeon got authorisation from Discovery Health for a chest procedure I would undergo on the 9th of February 2022. The procedure was a success and on the 14th of February, I was discharged from the hospital.

After my discharge, I was still in massive amounts of pain and the recovery was very challenging. In this state of constant pain I received a call from a very angry employee from Netcare Waterfall City hospital (the hospital I was admitted to) asking how I was planning to pay a R100k+ hospital bill as Discovery Health had rejected the claim even though there was an authorisation number.

I then had to call Discovery Health in my state of pain and fight for the hospital bill to be paid. Finally, after numerous days of waiting and countless follow up calls, Discovery Health finally woke up and paid the authorised hospital stay.

But that was not all. After this, I found out that none of the claims had been paid regardless of the authorisation number being present. These included physiothe****** claims as well as the surgeon's claims. All of the ICD and CPT procedure codes connected to the claims were included under the initial authorisation number and correct, but still no payment was made.

I had to call Discovery Health countless times so that they could reprocess each and every claim. I managed, with a lot of effort and time, to get most of the physiote****** claims to be paid. But they still did not want to pay the surgeons claims which was covered under the authorisation number with the correct ICD and CPT procedure codes.

Today, 22 April 2022, 72 days after my admission into hospital, my surgeon still has not been paid as well as 2 physiothe****** claims. Together with this, the amount of stress, airtime and time I've had to spend for Discovery Heath to honour their word, has been a great disappointment.

When considering a medical aid, think twice before going to Discovery Health.