The cancer was not just inside my beloved husband: it was, and is, inside Lancet and its billing practices

Mauff AC & Partners (trading as Lancet) do not deserve any stars whatsoever, but the lowest rating I can give on this site is one star. I have been trying for months to sort out problems caused by Lancet's own billing practices, which actively prevented my medical aid (Discovery) from paying their accounts, and have not received any assistance whatsoever from Lancet. I have not even had replies to my e-mails. Lancet's accounts people combined INR tests related to Warfarin use taken on a Thursday at the Leicester Road Laboratory, with pre-chemotherapy tests taken on a Friday at the Rosebank Oncology Centre's Lancet Laboratory, then put the combined result under the name of the wrong doctor and sent the claim to Discovery, which first depleted my Medical Savings Account and then refused to pay. I worked out what had been done by studying the test details, and immediately notified Lancet. Since then I have telephoned, e-mailed, complained on the Lancet website (twice), and even - in desperation - made a personal visit to the Lancet Head Office on December 14 last year. I sat with a gentleman called Khaya and showed him what Lancet had done., He agreed with me that Lancet was in error, and I left him three pages of detailed data on the problems, which he promised to sort out. Yet again, nothing was done and I have not received any feedback whatsoever. At different stages, I was referred to the Resolutions Department, which did nothing; one Lizette Samson, who did nothing; and most recently, Mr Vincent Chow, to whom I sent all the documentation setting out the errors and who then became uncontactable. He will not even answer his telephone. Now, months down the line from my first attempt to sort things out, Lancet has handed me over to Bennett Landau debt collectors who are waging a telephone war of attrition to bully me into paying accounts that would easily have been paid if Lancet had not inexplicably combined different tests by different laboratories taken on different days for different doctors. To underline the horror of it all, there is no ombudsman to whom I can appeal. There is a medical aid ombudsman, one for doctors, one for private hospitals, one for nurses, one for brokers, one for short-term insurers and one for long-term health insurers. Clinical pathology laboratories do not fall into any of those categories. Discovery says it cannot do anything: Lancet has to correct its errors and resubmit the claims. Lancet's people keep saying to me that the doctors have to resubmit. They do not know or understand – or care – that the doctors have nothing to do with it: none of the tests was undertaken as a result of forms provided by doctors. The Warfarin tests work on the basis of a Lancet Anticoagulation Clinic booklet, issued by Lancet itself. You walk in, show the booklet, and the person behind the computer in the Lancet laboratory generates a form, which the patient then signs. With chemotherapy, you walk in and the person behind the computer prints out a form. Lancet generates the forms itself. The forms then go the accounts department, which does heaven knows what with them. I cannot begin to describe the frustration I am feeling. I do not know where to turn. Lancet has mis-invoiced over R6,000-worth of tests. It was instrumental in the premature depletion of my Discovery Medical Savings, and completely responsible for the subsequent non-payment of tests. I want my Medical Savings Account refunded, and the accounts paid from the correct source. It is hard enough having a loved one diagnosed with cancer; having to deal with determined incompetence with regard to paying cancer-related bills makes life even harder to deal with.