Discovery Insulin Claim - Customer Service gone wrong

Hello. I am querying here because I have been on a rollercoaster of bad customer service with the call centre and its agents. I have 3 invoices that they have handled. The final decision from Discovery is that I am approved for the cartridges and not the pens and therefore, I cannot claim successfully.

Please note that I have been struggling to get this feedback since I first sent in my first invoice on 9/12/2020 (service date is 1/12/2020).

Briefly what happened: I submitted my invoices, 1st issue was that it was not clear enough and no payment confirmation even though the invoice clearly states paid in cash at the bottom. Then I was advised that they need the NAPPI code on the invoices. Then I contacted my pharmacy to reprint the invoices and add the relevant NAPPI codes. This was sent to the dcp address as well as the claims address. Throughout all of this, I am assured by EVERY agent that I come in contact with that they will be in touch and advise. Some even promise to call me back - multiple agents never call me back as promised. Eventually, we get the right person looking at the right document and finally, after the entire ordeal of me phoning and phoning and agents escalating, on 23 August 2021, almost 8 months after sending in the initial claim someone gives me an answer.

I have at this point lost it completely with the lack of service and empty promises. Only to be told that the claim will not be accepted because the pharmacy dispensed the pens instead of the cartridges.

There are cartridges inside the pen! The price for the cartridges is R448.07 and for the pens it is R556.13. So I am LOSING the R1780 total (3 x pen dispenser) because I paid a total of R324 MORE for the pens instead of the cartridges.

Herewith the timeline of events:

1st email: 9/12/2020 email ref *** 2nd email: 26/12/2020 email ref ***

4/01/2021 - Discovery says the invoices are unclear. 6/01/2021 - email ref *** 11/01/2021- email ref *** 18/01/2021 - Discovery cannot read query ***

6/02/2021- matter escalated, email sent ref *** 12/02/2021- I hear about the NAPPI CODE issue. DISCOVERY denies claim. Ref ***

18/03/2021- *** - I call my pharmacy ro request the document with revised invoices to be sent to ME so that I can handle it. It was previously sent to discovery from Reo Pharmacy - they sent it to claims@discovery ( ref *** paper claim). 24/03/2021 - Discovery pays R1340,13 to REO pharmacy instead of into my account for OPTISULIN. I paid for these medicines cash. I then had to arrange with the pharmacy to pay it to me - luckily this is our family pharmacy and they know us and agreed. Ref ***4. Mail ref *** 25/03/2021 - queried the Apidra - ***

16/04/2021- sent in revised invoices PDF with Nappi Codes 20/04/2021 - sent in revised invoices to claimsadjustments

9/06/2021 - sent another mail *** - sent revised pdf with nappi codes to ecp documents 13/06/2021- speak to Melanie, promises to call me back 29/06/2021 - *** - speak to brigitte, melanie has dissappeared

13/07/2021- sent to ecp documents again ATT brigitte 20/07/2021 - speak to Anthea, requested to ask Brigitte and Melanie to Phone me back- *** 21/07/2021 - speak to Thabile, she escalates

August - I am not sure of the date. I speak to Kevin who confirms that he can see the whole claim and the Nappi codes are correct. He escalates and gives me 2 references: *** *** This is the first time that someone has confirmed that the invoice and nappi codes are correct and that they are looking at the correct document.

23 August 2021 - 8 months after I initially started this query. I call Discovery AGAIN because no one is resolving the issue. I am livid at this point because I have been insisting to speak to a manager as the agents clearly have no clue what is going on. I eventually speak to the manager and she is the FIRST person to ever mention the pen/cartridge issue to me. When this was escalated multiple times to chronic etc, did they not check properly? Why was this never communicated to me prior to this moment? Surely, if they saw the invoice (and the issue was that they couldn't see the paid in cash and the nappi code) they could see that it said Apidra PEN? WHY was this query dragged on for 8 months before someone took the 5 minutes to LOOK at the invoice and notify me?

Just adding here that your call centre service is horrible. Placed on hold and waiting for 30 mins, an hour and then the call drops. I then have to phone back - no one ever calls you back, even if we are in the middle of a query- I then have to phone back and wait again and explain the whole scenario AGAIN.

Logged on Discovery website for dispute on 10 September 2021- ***.