It’s easy to get caught up in the age and gender distribution of a plan population when attempting to assess future costs for a given plan—and trying to develop solutions to contain those costs.
The day after the announcement from the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) about a new pooling framework for high-cost drugs, Stephen Frank, vice-president of policy development and health, spoke at a seminar releasing further details of the plan.
A group of 23 Canadian insurance companies has come up with a plan to share the cost of high-priced drug treatments—a move they say will protect Canadians from the risk of losing their employer-sponsored coverage due to a big claim.
On March 27, the Ontario government tabled its new fiscal budget—and it includes a number of long-term initiatives that will have a significant impact on the health plans of Ontario employers in the coming years.
On the group benefits side, those organizations with fewer plan members still face a few roadblocks when it comes to offering the flexibility that many of their employees seek.
U.S. healthcare reform means that employers south of the border will be seeing increased benefits costs—and those costs are likely to be passed onto employees, according to a survey by insurance broker Willis Group Holdings.
The growing impact of high-cost specialty drugs, coupled with shifting roles for health practitioners, calls for stakeholders to work together to improve drug plan efficiencies. But how?
Moderator Suzanne Lepage, a Toronto-based private plan strategist, launched the discussion by asking panellists what principles they followed when making decisions about drugs.
Barbara Martinez, a principal with Mercer, reported on the findings of the organization’s 2011 survey of Canadian private drug plans.
In 2008, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCH)—comprising 500 worksites, 13 hospitals and 35 long-term care nursing homes in B.C. that provide services to more than one million residents—had a serious staffing problem.