Discovery Makes You Pay Double Co-Payments

I went in for a procedure where I needed to pay a R4500 co-payment. I informed Discovery when I did my authorisation that I would pay this cash. I didn’t want it to come out of my savings. I paid the amount cash (the hospital gave me a 50% discount for cash payment). Even though I paid the co-payment and let Discovery know, they still went and took it from my savings. Now that I am trying to get them to reverse it, the hospital even requested a reversal, they rather deposited the 50% I paid back into my bank account. That is not what I wanted. I needed to keep the R4500 in my savings. The hospital also mentioned that Discovery does this with all their patients who pay their co-payment cash and then it’s a fight to get your money back. This is unacceptable. The reason I paid it cash is to claim from my Gap Cover. Now I can’t as yet because Discovery took double the co-payment and is refunding me the wrong amount to the wrong place. When I spoke to the Discovery agent before the procedure he informed me that if it does come out of my savings after I pay cash then they will refund it back into my savings. This was clearly not true as they are refusing to do so.