Discovery SUCKS!

Dear Hello Peter

Please help....

I am supposed to currently be with Discovery Medical aid but I'm having huge issues with them to the point where for 3 months they have my membership as canceled because each person is passing the buck to the next regarding my queries.

On the 11th October I was admitted to Sunninghill hospital. At the admissions desk when the administrator called discovery to get authorization they informed him that my premium was not paid. I left to go home and to find out what exactly was going on.

When I checked up I discovered that my soon to be ex husband had stopped the medical aid payment that usually goes off his account. I called discovery and made arrangements as to how to settle the account. They advised to pay on their website. I then made the payment on the 12th October to discovery. I received a message saying my membership was now active. I went back to Sunninghill hospital and repeated the procedure for admission. The administrator called discovery who said that my membership is all in order and gave him the authorization code. I was then admitted from the 12th to the 14th October.

While in Sunninghill hospital the doctor advised that he would like to admit me into a different clinic. I said OK. He advised it would be from the 18th October until however many days are approved by Discovery. The manager Claire from the other clinic called Discovery and received authorization for 18 days. I have sent this email to discovery as well as part of my proof. After 8 days of being in hospital the case manager received an email from Discovery saying I only had 2.5 days and that they would round it off to 3. At this point no one had called me regarding anything to do with my medical aid. The case manager Helen immediately called Discovery to enquire as to what's going on. On the call the agent informed her that it was an error on Discoverys part and that I did indeed have 18 days to stay. The next day Discovery called Helen at the clinic to say they were not paying for any more medical treatments as my medical aid is depleted. Helen called me to her office and advised me kindly. I also spoke to an agent from Discovery from Helen's phone who said they were looking into the matter and they would call me back. I had to embarrassingly be immediately discharged from the clinic without completing my treatments.

When I reached home I called discovery numerous times to enquire what was going on. They said to give them 2 weeks to call me back. A reference for a call on 2nd November with Penny is as follows Discovery reference *** Penny Tuesday 2 Nov 2.30pm I received a call from Heinz from Discoverys authorizations department. He advised that he would go through the calls etc but if discovery was indeed at fault they would send it to the ops loss department. In the meantime all the medical providers from my stay at the clinic including the clinic itself are sending me invoices for outstanding payments. Which I am not liable to pay for nor can I afford to pay them. My stay was authorized by Discovery via email. In November I went onto Discoverys website to make payment for November as I had called and wanted to downgrade my plan but decided against it as I would have had to pay too much back to discovery. The agent I spoke to sent me the vitality banking details. And said that medical aid and vitality are 2 different payments. I did an eft or vitality of R290 on the 27th November. And went onto the website to make the medical aid payment as it seemed so seemless in October. The amount due was R178 and few cents. I thought oh finally they've reimbursed my savings account for their blunder and so my premium is reduced. Anyways I made the payment. I decided to call up Heinz just to clarify everything. To my surprise Heinz then informed me that they've discovered that my medical aid had been cancelled since October and so they can no longer deal with the issue. It had to be dealt with at the accounts department. And he put my call thru. I spoke to Discovery Medical aid Rethabile Ref *** 2.30pm accounts department, client services who then said it would take 2 weeks to get back to me. On the 6th December I received an email from Discovery stating that they reversed all my claims as I canceled my membership and I now owed Discovery R18093!!! Shortly thereafter I received a phone call from discovery to which I stated please tell me you guys have sorted out this mess because now I received an email saying I owe you R18k. And the agent said Ma'am that's the reason for my call! I was livid to say the least! No body gets back to me stating why I was authorized for 18 days and then rejected. No one called to say that my payment for October was not received. No one called to say we've listened to the recordings of the calls and yes we are at fault. But very quick to say all calls are recorded. The only reason they called is to say I owe them money! I have a flu and I'm unable to even go to the doctor!

On the 9th of DECEMBER I received an email from Discovery thanking me for the screenshot of my payment for OCTOBER! But that the payments were not authorized and the bank confirmed this on 28th October! I did not receive any notifications from my bank nor discovery that this payment was unsuccessful. So up until this correspondence I had no idea that my payment was rejected. I usually would receive an sms from the bank or some type of request online for an OTP. None of which was received.

Please. I am absolutely out of my mind now. I am going through so much with my divorce and court and not seeing my babies every day. Moving out of my house. Etc etc. The last thing I need is to not have medical aid for crying out loud.

Just FYI I have been with Discovery since 1998!!! If that's not loyalty for you I don't know what is. And I have never missed a payment on my premiums!

I even messaged them on Facebook to try and get some kind of response from anyone with a brain.

I have given up on calling them as I spend hours of my time holding and re explaining over and over the same thing. I'm exhausted. I'm at my wits end. I even offered to walk in so I could sit with someone and talk the whole thing through. And even that's not an option. If anything were to happen to me tomorrow I would not have medical aid nor hospital cover.... NOTHING!

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. PLEASE HELP ME!