Discovery Health's concern for the safety of their members is great :)

Had an interesting debate with Discovery Health's Customer Care Dept - weird how words are twisted during such debates.

Due to Covid, my Cardio Dr was willing to renew my 6 monthly script without a consult (to reduce the risk of contracting Covid for his high risk patients) at a fee of R180.00. Due to my age and medical condition, I am a high risk (to the extent that my employer is understanding enough to allow me to work from home), I accepted the offer and received an invoice for my payment. I submitted the invoice to Discovery for a refund and was informed because there is no diagnostic code from the Dr, they refuse to refund me. They also claim that it is required by the Medical Schemes Act of 1998 that all claims must have this code (I read the entire Act and cannot find this stipulation, must be a Discovery rule, although the Consultant denied this). Truth be told the Consultant also insisted that there is a Code for the issuing of a script and I challenged her to provide me the Code (which was not provided, a Code for a consult and for a Dr writing a special motivation was provided - 0132 and 0133).

So in essence it appears that Discovery insists that a Covid high risk member must have a physical consultation with a Dr to qualify for a refund of any payments for a script. I do find this somewhat reckless in these times where we all understand the dangers of being exposed to Covid, but then I suppose as long as there are profits to be made, what business cares about members being unnecessary exposed to risk.

Thanks Discovery, I appreciate your concerns for my well being for the sake of refunding R180-00 from my savings (yes, my saving - not even money out of their pocket, except for the meagre interest they benefit on this amount),