Travel within Canada
Posted date : Nov 7, 2017.
Dear Bird Talk,
My wife and I are members of CSA and I have my Travel Emergency Insurance with Medipac for U.S. travel (5 months).
We will be in British Columbia for 10 days this summer.
RBC Insurance says that we need emergency medical insurance and that OHIP won’t cover us.
Are the RBC people correct?
Thank you.
Gary Garner
Thunder Bay, ON
P.S.
(1) A 67 year old friend of mine had an emergency heart by pass operation in Calgary last fall. He DID NOT have emergency medical expense coverage. OHIP paid with no questions asked – estimated cost $50,000 +
(2) Based on CSA’s policy letter from British Columbia, it appears that BC residents travelling to Ontario retain their BC coverage!
Response:
OHIP and any other provincial plan will certainly cover you, anywhere in Canada. All doctor’s and hospital expenses are fully paid by your province of residence even if health care services are provided in a different province. However, certain non-health-care expenses are not covered and can be costly. The most frequent of these non-covered expenses is the cost of an ambulance. We recently heard from an Ontario member who was charged $600 for an ambulance bill in Nova Scotia. The real risk is if you travel to, or travel through, remote areas. If you have a medical emergency, an air ambulance (usually a helicopter with high level medical equipment) may be required to get you to a medical center quickly. You could be billed several thousand dollars and your provincial health insurance program will not pay this bill.
The risk may be remote, but if such an emergency were to occur, the costs can be high. This is one of the reasons Medipac added this inter-provincial coverage to their Annual Plan Add-On; it will cover those very unexpected expenses anywhere in Canada for up to 60 days, automatically.
