Discovery Medical Aid Pathetic After Hours Assistance

My Family and myself were involved in a serious car accident on the 15th of March 2019 at 13H30 just of the N4 towards Carolina. On the accident scene I tried to contact Discovery to no avail, my wife was taken by ambulance to Life Midmed Hospital in Middelburg for medical attention as my brother in law had to help with contacting an ambulance.

I only managed to arrive at the Hospital at close to 16H00 where I continued in vain to get a hold of anyone from Discovery as Midmed is not a registered hospital with Discovery. They would not admit my wife as I 1st had to pay a “Penalty fee” of R8200.00 before she would be admitted.

With my wife being on medication and obviously in shock I had a really hard time to pay the Penalty as she could not remember her bank card pin number etc. At 20H51 I finally managed to have a payment done and my wife was admitted.

Now here is where my utter frustration and losing my mind came in, ON YOUR HELP LINE ***the voice CLEARLY states that when you are in a medical emergency………. PLEASE GO STRAIGHT TO A HOSPITAL AS NO PRE AUTHORIZATION IS REQUIRED IN ANY EMERGENCY SITUATION.

Well this does not seem to be quite accurate if the hospital is not a registered service provider with Discovery is it?

In all this time I had to run around like a maniac screaming and cursing at my phone whilst trying to deal with my 9 and 6 year old boys who were just involved in a traumatic motor vehicle accident, O and by the way my 6 year old son has Autism who could not comprehend what he has just gone through!!!!

I hope you are starting to see the picture here, worst day of my life almost losing my wife and 2 children and now not receiving ANY assistance from Discovery.

PLEASE DEAR DISCOVERY MEMBER, IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON HAVING AN ACCIDENT PLEASE TRY AND DO SO BETWEEN OFFICE HOURS AS WE WILL NOT BE ASSISTING YOU AFTER HOURS.

You should clearly print this on your membership cards, as this is the hard fact truth about your after hour assistance.

Believe me you have just opened a **** storm here for yourself as Discovery Health Care, I will go public with this as far as I possibly can, I will post our story on Social Media and wherever I possibly can and make sure that your EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE is layed bare in the open.

Even the lady at the emergency room said to me that she is sorry to say this but you will not be able to reach Discovery after hours….. Seems public knowledge if this is the confirmation from the hospital itself?????

If you dare skip a payment you are in for it my friend, but when you are in need wait till the next day!!!!!!!

Pathetic service to say the least.