In the middle-class story of the holidays, what made Discovery Health’s reimbursement error utterly bizarre was that it publicly defended its flawed legal stance when it never had a case. I’m not sure how your first day back at the office was, or whether it was today or last week. But I am almost certain that the vibe in your office right now is better than what’s going on at the top of that shiny Discovery edifice in Sandton.
It is extraordinary that an organisation as media savvy as Discovery Health has so completely messed up a simple problem. In case you were away, or simply felt Sandton should be ignored during the break, the story is pretty simple. Right before Christmas Discovery Health emailed about 16,000 of its members, saying it had made a mistake with the way it had reimbursed their pharmacy expenses.
Instead of the scheme implementing the normal limit for those costs, those members had been reimbursed. Now, Discovery Health wanted the money back. In fact, it was already taking steps.
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The affected members would not be reimbursed for their medical costs until the difference had been made up. You skip into your pharmacy at the start of January, only to find that you are liable for all of your costs for probably the whole year. And you are expected to keep paying Discovery Health anyway!
This would have a huge impact on some patients, and even on some businesses. At least one optometrist I know is busiest in January because people suddenly have funds in their medical aid accounts. You can imagine the outcry.
It became the middle-class story of the holidays. And it was made worse by what can only be described as atrain-crash interview by Discovery Health’s CEO, Ron Whelan, with Cape Talk’s John Maythamlast week. I have known Maytham ever since I was his intern in 1996, and have the pleasure of working with him now. I could have told Whelan not to argue with him.
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