Pathetic service from Discovery medical aid

My wife is on a Delta Comprehensive plan with Discovery. She is currently 27 weeks pregnant.

According to her plan, she qualifies for an electric breast pump which is regarded as an essential registered item. The plan will pay 75% of the total amount, up to R5350, and the remaining 25% is paid out of pocket. According to the plan brochure, this benefit is activated upon activating her maternity benefit, and is separate from her day to day savings.

Here is where the nightmare begins: 1. Firstly, none of the Nappi codes were updated from the provided list of essential registered items by Discovery. After several attempts of purchasing a breast pump from the above benefit without success, we had to contact the breast pump manufacturer ourselves, and get them to update the Nappi codes with both DisChem and Clicks.

2. After updating the Nappi codes, we attempted for the 5th time to purchase the selected breast pump, however, this time, it was rejected by Discovery, citing that my wife's day to day benefits were depleted.

3. We contacted both Discovery and Zensure (The broker who aided us switching to Discovery from our previous medica aid). The first agent from Discovery stated that the breast pump which is an essential registered item from the maternity benefit comes off the day to day savings. We disputed this, as it is not stated in the plan brochure from Discovery. We then had a 3 person telephone conversation with both Discovery and the broker, and at this point, the Discovery agent states that the essential registered items benefit can only be activated once my wife delivers our baby.

We stated that this makes no sense, and it is not stated in the brochure as well. We requested that the matter be escalated, but we were met with a lot of resistance from the Discovery agent. Approximately 2 days later, we received an email from the same agent stating that the benefit can only be activated upon delivery of the baby, and the baby must be registered on a Discovery medical aid plan (This email is on record). These "disclaimers" are not stated in any of the brochures wrt the current plan my wife is on.

Till date, we are still struggling to purchase the so called "essential registered item", and no one from Discovery is able to clarify or assisst us.

We made the greatest mistake by switching from the previous medical aid to Discovery, and I hope this review allows future consumers to chose wisely, so they do not experience the same frustrating issues as us.