Unacceptable actions and not caring for their members- Not Treating Customers Fairly-

On the 31st of December I called Discovery to transfer my mother who is my dependent on my policy *** onto her own medical aid and then to upgrade her to a higher plan as is allowed before 1 January. The call centre agent Wendy Khaniye then said yes that it’s possible and it will happen seamlessly. She then sent me the application form and said that I need to fill it in and send it through which I did on the 31st of December. As my mother is Greek and older her English is not so good and so as her son I had permission and access to all her information. I then had to follow up myself in the first week of January only to get a response a week later. The response then said I need to sign the application form and not use an electronic signature and redate it, which I did.

Again I had to follow up and then a week later, I got the approval counter offer letter ( her new policy number ***) saying all is fine and I need to fill in the start date on the letter and that my employer needs to withdraw my mother from my medical aid. I then called the Discovery call centre to ask the consultant what date I need to fill in on the form as it was already the last week of January, and she re**** and said I need to fill in 1 February 2021 and told me to withdraw my mother as a dependent on 31 January 2021 as I did. ( You may go back and hear the calls since the calls should be recorded).

On the 29th January I called to find out if all has been activated and again no action was taken and so I asked the matter to be escalated as the 31st January 2021 was on Sunday. The consultant said she will get back to me before the end of the day, and yet again I had not received a call nor an email. So, I had the stress and anxiety of not knowing what is going to happen the whole weekend.

On Monday the 1st of February 2021 I once again had to call Discovery to find out what the status was per the call centres statements, I withdrew my mother from my Medical aid and she is now not covered. And I then got the response back that they now can’t activate her Medical Aid as the date is the 1st February 2021 and they can only do upgrades 1 January. Yes, but my original application and every other action all this time was for 1 January 2021 but due to your untrained/inexperienced call centre agents that took so long to action all the items and inform me, and explicitly said I need to write 1 February 2021 as the start date and explicitly said that I need to withdraw my mother 31 January 2021, that have caused all these issues and my mother is still not covered on a medical aid. Even though in all my communication and emails I specifically said they should not remove her from my medical aid until they are certain that her own medical aid can be activated.

After much other frustration with call agents, specialists and my employers Health consultant, I then got a letter at 14:32 on Monday the 1st February 2021 (dated 29 January 2021) saying that my mother needs to decide either to reinstate her membership as per before and become my dependent again or they need to backdate her withdrawal to 31 December 2021 and reactivate her account once that is down.

Given that the simple upgrade sent on 31 December 2020 was not actioned we have just had enough and so my mother (a pensioner) had said that we will just reinstate her as my dependent effective 1 February 2020, because it seems that this will be a never ending story and my mother will be without a medical aid. The form with this action was then sent back to Discovery and my employers health consultant had arranged and emailed them and still no response. She is now currently stressing and crying as we still have not received communication that her Medical aid was reinstated.

Discovery, this totally unacceptable and appalling behavior and actions from your employees. Your service is shocking, your consultants provide the wrong information, the communication is nonexistence and in return, your members are suffering. Clearly the working from home is not working out. This is totally against Treating Your Customers Fairly (TCF)

PLEASE JUST REINSATE MY MOTHER AS MY DEPENDENT TODAY AS SHE REQUESTED. THIS HAS NOW BECOME SO FRUSTRATING THAT I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ANYMORE AS NO ONE IS LISTENING.

Here are all my reference numbers from emails that were sent to discovery: *** *** ***