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Drug Coverage – Cash Is No Longer King
By Lina Demedieros
Health Care costs have doubled between 1998 and 2004. As a result of the positive impact of Insurance companies implementing price controls, reporting, patient safety and compliance, they have helped the average Canadian keep their health care costs at bay with the implementation of Deferred Drug Cards.
As a result of Bill 102 in Ontario a two tiered pricing system exists. The Ontario Drug Benefit Act and the Drug Interchangeability and Dispensing Fee Act will pay for generic drugs at 50% of the Brand Name. It has further implemented a code of conduct establishing a system governing the use of professional allowances. This two tier pricing system represents as much as a 25.01% to 61.49% increase for just the cost of the drug excluding any dispensing fees. This means that in the absence of either a group or individual health & dental program, it would mean re-financing your property to keep up with the cost of prescription medication. Cash is no longer king when it comes to drugs however insurance plans will help keep your costs down.
As disease trends escalate, the new frontier is Chronic Disease Management. In all likelihood the average Canadian will have 3 or more of these chronic diseases and they will become progressively worse over time. Chronic Disease Management moves us from an episode of single disease approach to an interdisciplinary medical approach, including a heavy dependency on drug therapies. As this emerges, a group plan sponsor (your employer or contractual supplier) can no longer rely on historical drug cost curves, re-vamping of health care costs in order to keep costs down. They are forced at looking at new strategies to keep costs down.
The leading chronic diseases include Arthritis, Asthma, Cardiovascular Disease, Emphysema, High Blood Pressure, Epilepsy, Cancer, Obesity, Diabetes, Hypertension, Sleep Apnea, Depression and Oral Health Problems. If you don’t have a good Oral Health regime, adopt one now. Oral health is becoming one of the leading causes to chronic disease.
As baby boomers age the probability of arthritis, hypertension, diabetes is 5 times higher after age 50. This means that upon diagnosis of one or more of these chronic conditions the average Canadian will be visiting a physician 4 times more, 4 times more likely to be hospitalized and 25 times more likely to require prescriptions.
So if you do not have a health care program, now is the time to implement one while you are healthy. In the absence of group plans, individual programs will not cover pre-existing conditions and those that do limit the amount of coverage available. These limits still provide value considering the two tier pricing system in Ontario. So in 2008, make this a priority for you and your family. Budgeting this expense represents money in the bank, while waiting until the problem is here represents liquidating the very things you worked so hard for over the years.
For a free quote, please visit our website, click on the Manulife logo or contact our office for more information. Happy New year to you and yours!
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