Poor customer service and ludicrous co-payments!

I have been a member of Fedhealth for 12 years. I was on the Maxima advanced plan. In this time I put in very little claims.

Recently, I had to go for a critical operation for my back. They forced me to go on a R900 more expensive plan, Flexified4, before I could go for the operation. I had to wait for 5 months for this plan shift to take place, which was supposed to give me more privelages. This done, my co-payment was still R4000 rand for the hospital, keeping in mind that it is a hospital plan.

That set aside, I now have to go in for another back operation. Firstly we had to go through a strenuous process just to get the information from them about what costs they would cover of the operation. Multiple times we sent an email to the ********** email address. Each time we got a reply with a reference number that stated that they were attending to the request. But other than that we received no feedback at all. Only when we phoned about five days later, we were informed that we were sending the documents to the wrong address. So we sent it to the right email address. But, three days later we still had no authorization from them. Phoning again, each time about thirty minutes of airtime on my cost, they finally gave us the authorization.

But...

The total co-payment they expect of me is a staggering R24200! This is excluding microscopic procedures which they refuse to pay. I am a widow and a pensioner (70 years old), and I simply am not able to pay this. This operation is definitely not something I want to do for my own pleasure. I am in pain due to my back and it is a critical and unavoidable.

I expected more from Fedhealth. The reason I pay so much for my medical aid is so that they cover expenses like these, but when I need them they are practically useless. This is an unacceptable way to treat people who have been faithful and inexpensive clients.