I'm given a run around regarding a specific medication on my PMB condition application. I lodged five queries and there is no response on this medication, it seems this is specifically and intentionally omitted.

I sent Discovery the same query five times (3 times telephonic and 2 online) and now I don’t know what else to do or which language I need to submit this in, so it is well understood. So, I need to vent out a bit here in the meantime while I still deliberate on the next action.

 Last year my Dr submitted an 'out-of-hospital treatment of PMB condition' application for me and attached the prescription which included two medications - Pan***xl and C******t but Discovery responded on all the medication except for these two and this is what my initial query was about.  I contacted Discovery recently to ask why these two were not included in their response, if perhaps they were missed by mistake. I specifically mentioned (in all the five queries that I lodged) that these two medications were no. 3 and no. 9, respectively, on the script drawing attention of anyone handling the query to make it easy for them.  I called three times with no resolution, and then lodged the first online query. Discovery came back declining Pan***xl but didn’t say anything about Ce***xxt.  I then lodged another query about Ce***xxt and according to their online query process this is ‘to contact the Principal Officer’. This made me so hopeful, expecting a resolution finally.  To my greatest disappointment, the response came back mentioning another medication (Calciferol – Vitamin D) that I didn’t enquire about, and still didn’t say anything about C******t despite the full background I gave. Clearly the ‘Principal Officer’ did not read and apply his/her mind to my query, the same way as person who read the initial query and those that the call centre agents ‘escalated’ the queries to.

I don’t know if this is just a planned tactic from Discovery not to put this medication in PMB cover or if this reflects a poor client service from Discovery employees, entrusted to handle review critical applications like the PMB treatments and queries.

I can’t be going back and forth like this with such a simple query. Why is there no response about Ce***xxt when it is the critical part of the treatment and was included in the application?

I find this extremely disappointing, after being a Discovery Health member for over 20 years and been on Classic Comprehensive Plan for all those years (which was the highest plan for quite some time). I have never had serious challenges like I have now and honestly, I don’t like the situation I am in. No one wishes to take immune system suppressants for life or for quite some time. Over and above that they are expensive. I am not even taking the original medication the Dr prescribed. I am taking a generic, but it is still expensive. Discovery was quick to approve one particular medication that costs R27.19 monthly, but gives me a run around with the expensive one.