Coverage Tips

Medical Profile (Benefit Tips ® - © 1998)

Appropriate medical treatment in the event of an emergency can improve your quality of life. Knowledge of your medical condition can improve the appropriateness of emergency medical care.

Methods
Access to your medical history may be necessary during emergency care. The following are some of the ways that you can provide that information when it is needed most.

  • Life threatening conditions should be disclosed on a medical alert bracelet .
  • Emergency care information and a list of medication should be kept in a plastic container in your refrigerator to aid emergency care at home.
  • Emergency care information and a full medical history can be digitized on a plastic wallet card or kept by a medical information bureau.

 

Mandatory Drug Insurance (Benefit Tips ® - © 2013)


If insurance companies have their way, employers will be forced to buy drug insurance for their staff. The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) is lobbying for a “National Minimum Formulary” of drug coverage. Their desire is to make it illegal for employers to use annual drug claim maximums or health spending accounts to control their benefit costs.

Since 1997, employers have been forced to provide unlimited drug coverage for their Quebec staff and the CLHIA want to see that regime expanded to the entire country.

Employers have been able to manage their benefit costs for non-Quebec staff by limiting drug claims and replacing insurance with health spending accounts. Notwithstanding what Quebec does, forcing employers to provide unlimited drug coverage is distinctly offensive. If it is truly in the national interest for all Canadians to have unlimited drug coverage then Medicare needs to be expanded.

Source: page 28 of CLHIA report on prescription drug policy.

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