Discovery Health has been the worst health insurance that I've experienced

I joined discovery health insurance last year when I moved jobs. I was hoping for a good experience based on all of the adverti*****ts that I've seen. But instead, out of the 3 health insurances that I've been a member of, Discovery has been the worst, by far.

My wife is a diabetic and right from the get go this made us feel unwelcome at Discovery. They initially wanted to put us on a waiting period for medication, but after I complained that I was changing medical aids due to changing jobs, they relented and removed the waiting period.

Then my wife got pregnant a couple of months after we joined and she had to be put on very specific baby safe diabetes medication. This medication was on the Government's PMB list but Discovery would pay for it out of our medical savings. Only after I complained and after a lengthy process did they agree to pay for some of the medication from the scheme benefits.

Then we got a shock that only 2 pregnancy scans come out of the scheme benefits, the rest come out of our medical savings. I have to question the logic on this decision. As anyone who has a child knows, the gynae usually does a scan at every visit. And how is it medically safe to tell the gynae, not to do a scan because I can't afford the medical aid co-payment. Luckily I can afford it, but this has to be one of the worst policies that Discovery has.

And now, while my wife is nearing her due date, Discovery did it again. While I tried to pre-authorise the baby's delivery, Discovery, in all its wisdom, decided to not approve the pre-authorisation. Instead they said some "committee needs to approve the pre-authorisation." There is little doubt in my mind that they will look for any reason for not paying for the procedure. Not to mention that this process could take weeks and they also required me to follow up instead of informing me of their decision (undoubtably another way that discovery decided to save a penny). I guess we will have to hope that no emergency arises that will require us to take the baby out before then.

All this is not to mention the fact that vitality is not worth the effort and the over 10% price increases that they questionably say is effectively 5% because it happens in the middle of the year (I'm sure some administrator cleverly patted themselves on the back for that one). This reasoning is wrong by the way - it might have been correct if the increase only occurred every 18 months, but since it occurs every 12 months, it is indeed an above 10% annual increase.

I am very disappointed by Discovery and while we have decided to just bite the bullet with Discovery and continue for this year as changing medical aids while pregnant wouldn't be possible, we are eagerly waiting for the next opportunity to change. Discovery Health should re-evaluate many of its policies and really focus just on its customers. But I'm not holding my breath.