A prescription drug cap is among the issues in a strike by United Steelworkers union members in western Labrador. The union members work for the Iron Ore Co. of Canada, a joint venture involving Rio Tinto, which holds 58.7 per cent, Mitsubishi Corp. and the Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Income Corp. According to the CBC, the […]
Employer-sponsored drug plan spending increased 2.5 per cent from 2016 to 2017, according to Express Scripts Canada’s latest drug trend report. “The trend was fairly moderate in terms of the year-over-year increase that we saw,” says John Herbert, director of strategy, product development and clinical services at Express Scripts. “But there’s still cause for concern when we […]
New federal legislation around pharmaceutical patents will impose significant costs on public and private drug plans, the parliamentary budget officer is predicting. The legislation would have cost drug plans and consumers an extra $392 million in 2015 had it been in place that year, the report, released in late April, estimates. Of that, $214 million […]
Health-care costs are projected to increase a whopping 130 per cent over the next eight years after a period of relatively flat growth, according to a study published by Mercer in 2017. One of the key drivers is rising drug costs, with expensive specialty medications and gene therapies making up the majority of new products in development. So […]
When RBC Insurance Services Inc. began offering pharmacogenetic testing to its group benefits plan sponsors and began a clinical study of the issue in relation to biologic drugs recently, it did so with a few things in mind. “There’s a number of issues we’re looking at as we consider how to approach addressing those issues, […]
In last week’s report on pharmacare, the House of Commons’ standing committee on health recommended a significant departure from the current mix of private drug coverage supplemented by public programs. While the report referenced various provincial drug programs that supplement private benefits plans or cover those without their own insurance — including those offered by Quebec, […]
The House of Commons’ standing committee on health is recommending the creation of a universal, single public payer prescription drug coverage program for all Canadians. “The committee believes that the best approach for the creation of such a program is through the expansion of the Canada Health Act to include prescription drugs dispensed outside of hospitals as an insured service,” […]
Ontario’s political parties are busy making promises about key benefits issues as they prepare for this June’s election campaign, with the governing Liberals announcing a plan expand the OHIP+ pharmacare program to seniors and the New Democratic Party proposing action on dental care. On Tuesday, just days after the Ontario NDP pledged universal pharmacare and dental coverage should […]
With the impending legalization of marijuana in Canada, what do plan sponsors need to consider? How will the workplace be affected by both recreational and medical marijuana? What are the legal implications? Should benefits plans cover medical marijuana? All these topics and more will be on the table during a panel discussion at Benefits Canada’s 2018 […]
The hepatitis C hump is over. Since 2014, Health Canada has approved several promising medications for the disease. While the direct-acting antivirals offer cure rates of more than 90 per cent, they cost tens of thousands of dollars, and benefits plans felt the pinch. But now, “after an initial spike in treatment requests, claims have […]