Ontario versus Alberta, from someone who moved

Started 7 October 2024 · 21 replies · 263 hearts · read 3.3k times

BassCoventry, UK · 7 October 2024

1.8 years ago

A question rather than an update: Ontario versus Alberta, from someone who moved

Anyone else here in my part of the world? I would like to compare notes.

The seasonal side of this is a real planning problem where I live and I have not seen it discussed anywhere.

Regional question, because I have read a great deal of advice that turns out to be true in one country only and I have been caught by that twice.

What I want to know is what to ask for by name, because a general request has got me nowhere three times.

Thanks. Local experience especially welcome — I have plenty of advice from elsewhere and none of it applies.

NadjaBelgrade, RS

I moved provinces and had to rebuild the coverage arrangement entirely, which took about four months.

14me too 1

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

I want to slow this down. Two people are describing two different systems and the advice from one will not transfer to the other.

KaiVancouver, CA

The appeal process on my plan existed and was not advertised, and asking about it directly is what got me to it.

MapleToronto, CA

Picking up Nadja’s point rather than starting a new one.

What I would say is read your plan's actual wording rather than the summary. Mine had a clause that changed everything.

AurelBucharest, RO

Esi, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

My employer's plan changed at renewal and the coverage changed with it, and I found out at the pharmacy counter.

IvorLlanelli, UK

I found the pharmacist here more involved than I expected and better informed than several other people I spoke to.

12me too 6

OrphBath, UK

The winter is a real planning input for me. Two months of the year the travel to appointments is genuinely uncertain.

TamsinRedruth, UK

Grateful you posted rather than kept it to yourself.

OrvalWinnipeg, CA

What I found is that what my cousin in another province described bore no resemblance to my situation at all.

OrrinGlasgow, UK

#10

Picking up Orph’s point rather than starting a new one.

My private plan covered part of it and the criteria were in a document I had never read until somebody here suggested asking for it.

MargueriteQuebec City, CA

#11

What helped was a pharmacist who knew the special authority process well and effectively filled the form in with my doctor.

NolanHalifax, CA

#12

That is a kinder way of putting it than I have managed about myself.

BassCoventry, UK

#13

Coming back to what Orrin wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

The cost without coverage was the thing that nearly stopped me, and the coverage conversation should have happened much earlier.

NadjaBelgrade, RS

#14

Something I got right was keeping every receipt, because the annual claim needed all of them and I nearly threw them out.

XanBerlin, DE

#15

Nadja, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

Something worth knowing: my province's formulary is published and searchable, and reading it answered questions nobody would answer on the phone.

KaiVancouver, CA

#16

My reviews are with a nurse practitioner and the care has been consistently good and much easier to access than a physician appointment.

MapleToronto, CA

#17

I found the telehealth option excellent and it removed most of the travel problem for me for eight months of the year.

AurelBucharest, RO

#18

What I would flag is that the criteria on my plan were reviewed annually, and I had assumed approval was permanent.

15me too 1

IvorLlanelli, UK

#19

No advice, just company. Here if it helps.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

#20

Noticing that this thread has been unusually good at saying what the poster does not know, which is the hardest thing to write.

TamsinRedruth, UK

#21

My honest experience is that this has been an administrative problem far more than a clinical one.

14me too 6