UNHAPPY FEDHEALTH Med Aid Members

Hello Peter RE: Fedhealth Medical Aid Unhappy Medical Aid Members We have been members of Fedhealth with various plans since 1995. We are now Hospital Plan pensioners on Flexi 2 Plan. In December 2024 we were promised our update Care Plan for 2025 which, as far as we are aware, we never received. Apparently, according to Fedhealth Client Services, spinal surgery was deleted from our Plan. In February 25 I was diagnosed as needing a critical & urgent Spinal Laminectomy operation. It was possible I would be paralyzed if I didn’t have the procedure. Fedhealth Client Services told us on 10th March 25 to move immediately to Flexi health 3 to get authorisation. We submitted the forms the same day as instructed. The authorization was again refused by Client Services but for a different reason. Our application for upgrading our plan was ignored and then refused. We were then referred by Client Services to Fedhealth approved contracted surgeons in Cape Town who were required to approve spinal surgeries. After many calls to Cape Town this was confirmed as totally inaccurate advice. Our medical team in George, W.C, are also contracted to Fedhealth. Fedhealth continued to send “no reply” emails rejecting to authorize the surgery. Communication with Fedhealth was extremely difficult with expensive phone bills mounting up. Every different Fedhealth Client Services person requested to hear the whole story from the beginning. We were asked to forward our X-rays and MRI scans to Fedhealth on three separate occasions. Shame you Fedhealth for not authorizing this surgery and for all the different reasons and excuses to avoid responsibility. Not one of your personnel were able to communicate with authority or empathy for our situation. To this date we have still been unable to upgrade our Flexifed Plan that initially we were told, by Client Services, we could upgrade immediately. This is a very disappointing Medical Aid Scheme and very difficult to deal with. Subsequently, as we could not delay waiting for authorisation from Fedhealth, surgery was successfully undertaken. Finally, Fedhealth informed us we were “too late” to change to FlexiFed3 and therefore they are not responsible for this surgery. GeoffreyW&SM Matthews