Do not trust Sizwe with your life, do not use them as your medical aid.

Hello,

My father was diagnosed with a low platelete condition, forgive me for not knowing the name off by heart, but its classed as preleukemia.

He has been receiving treatment for the last couple of years, we don't do anything without approval.

There is always a battle with Sizwe, there is always something they reject and requires a lot of time and effort on our side to get them to pay it.

My father went in for a shoulder operation in 2022, his plateletes were too low and had to get transfusions before they were willing to operate. It took several and they had to run blood tests every time to check that everything is in order. Eventually it got to a point which they were happy and the operation took place successfully.

Unbeknownst to us, Sizwe took offense to the repeated tests and rejected a lot of charges. Leaving a nearly 14k bill unpaid. Lancet made my parent aware of this in early 2023, and since then my mother has been battling to get Sizwe to pay the invoice. She spent hours on the line with them, sent through lots of paper work, including a Doctor's motivation, chased between Lancet & Sizwe... but every time she thought it was resolved the case just went cold, communication was lost, the people she dealt with disappeared and the matter went unresolved.

It got to a point where Lancet sent through the Invoice to debt collectors, and Sizwe didn't care because it was our name being dragged through the mud, not theirs.

We eventually got a letter of demand stating we had to pay the invoice before the last day of July 2024 or we will be taken to court.

My parents don't have much, they can't afford this crazy expensive medical aid Sizwe "offers", they are retired and don't have any other form of income.

I have been paying for their medical aid to ensure my father gets treatments, but Sizwe keeps increasing the debit by a lot every year. So who knows how long it will be affordable. Sure its all according to their plan, the only good customer is one that doesn't claim.

I decided to take over this case and push it to get resolved. I logged a ticket with Sizwe on 24 July 2024, I spoke to a person called Donell Dalais, he told me that he will move mountains to get my problem resolved and I thought that perhaps we finally spoke to someone that will assist us.

it is 12 August 2024 now. Two weeks after the deadline imposed to us by the debt collectors. And 25 July 2024 was the last time I heard from him. He said he is busy motivating the case because its a stale case for being so old. And since then after repeated follow ups I can't get in touch with him and he is ignoring my emails.

I had to pay the invoice out of pocket to ensure my parents don't get blacklisted and/or taken to court. And all of this was due to negligence on Sizwe's side.

Its been an absolute pain dealing with Sizwe, you can't see anyone in person, you can't speak to a manager, you can't reliably speak to the same person as they hide behind an inbound call centre and they say they are always on calls, and they ignore your emails. And getting reference numbers out of them is close to impossible. You either call them and get no reference number but they promise to help (but never do). Or you email to get a reference, but it never gets responded to.

So if you read this and you ever consider Sizwe as your medical aid. DO NOT USE THEM.

Unless you want a company that goes out of their way to make it as difficult as possible for you during a time of your life where you are already at your most vulnerable. You will end up in debt due to them rejecting invoices for no rhyme or reason. Leaving you to battle their impossible call centre to try and get things resolved.

I'm considering legal options now, We have email trails dealing with them and I find this unacceptable. Its just difficult to filter out the cases as they don't always give reference numbers, and there have been so many battles its all just one big mess of email threads.

I am disappointed and disgusted with your Sizwe.

Stephan