Treatment of members living permanently in Namibia

You can’t get a more dissatisfied service to an permanent international resident in Namibia then by Discovery Medical Aid. My parents are pensioners that have to pay all medical cost upfront and then claim back from the medical aid. In some cases it takes up to 15 business days for them to get refunded. This has been going on for years now. The system generate an email with the reference number states that the claim will be processed within 2-3 business days. I follow up all claims after 3 business days with Discovery Escalations only to find out that it is still somewhere in the system. I’m also told that they have back logs. This “back log excuse” has been going on forever and on top of that the Covid escape code. The latest “defense” they are using to justify the service delivery quality/standard is measure against Section 59 of the Medical Schemes Act: A medical scheme shall, in the case where an account has been rendered, subject to the provisions of this Act and the rules of the medical scheme concerned, pay to a member or a supplier of service, any benefit owing to that member or supplier of service within 30 days after the day on which the claim in respect of such benefit was received by the medical scheme.

They have more reference numbers than claims.