Pregancy benefits...but only if you have registered! Highly upset!

As with any couple, we were very excited to fall pregnant with our second child and having the OBGYN confirm this was the most amazing news. We are now half way through and have visited the OBGYN numerous times since he confirmed the pregnancy, earlier this year. We have now exhausted our medical savings account and thought that perhaps we should be receiving some benefits from our medical aid, for the routine visits. We discovered that we are entitled to some but didn't know. My wife then registered for 'Your pregnancy' on the website, because the app didn't work properly, and then called Discovery to ask if we could be refunded the money back into our medical savings, for the benefits we should have received. She was told that it is too late and she didn't register in time to receive them and only going forward would we benefit. She told me how disappointed she felt, which I felt too. As a customer of 17 years, I feel pretty used. Not only this, we didn't receive any benefits under this programme for our first child too, which also exhausted our medical savings at the time! Surely Discovery, having seen so many OBGYN visits, including scans, which are likely to include a code indicating pregnancy, should also perhaps flag their system to say that these people are not getting the benefits that they are due and perhaps should be contacted to tell us that if we register, most of what we are paying for out of our medical savings would be covered. Discovery claim to be so advanced and willing to help and benefit, but when people don't know, it leaves a very sour taste to simply be told, 'NO you can't get those benefits because you didn't register in time'.

I feel that it would be very simple for Discovery to help people out, but quite clearly, money is the motivator for them and their shareholders and bottomline profits are more important than us, their clients. I wonder how much money they are making by not giving people benefits that are technically due. And how many people, like us, are even aware of these benefits and simply try to then pay out of medical and personal savings!

I hope that someone comes to the party from Discovery because at the moment, I and my wife feel pretty terrible about this! And perhaps should reconsider our membership and my company's medical aid.