leggobeast

Hi

Please can anyone confirm my understanding of the OHIP 3-month wait?

I have been in Canada under a 3 year TWP since January and my wife and daughter have just joined me.

We will have to wait 3 months for OHIP to kick in - I go to the counter service and apply for it today.

In the meantime I understand that we can take out private medical insurance.

Now, from what I understand, such insurance is just for accidents and emergencies. For a more normal visit to a doctor we are not covered by OHIP or by any private insurance.

Can we just pay the doctor? Or do we simply have no ability to use medical services at all except in emergencies?

To add a little stress to our situation, my wife is a couple of weeks late and might well be pregnant. We will need a visit to the doctor to confirm and a 12 week scan, or whatever the Canadian scan convention is.

How would be go about procuring these? Use OHIP and reimburse them?

Presumably, once our 90 days are up, the pregnancy is covered in full by OHIP. Or do they have pre-existing exclusions?


Thanks in advance for any advice or experience you can share


Leggo

Souvy

If you are going to OHIP today, why not simply ask them the question? They will know better than anyone on here.

Auld Yin

Once you qualify for OHIP pre-existing conditions do not matter. Your wife would be covered completely for all aspects of her pregnancy.

Call a private insurer and ask questions about what coverage they provide for the three month period.

Oakvillian

You can get medical insurance that effectively replaces OHIP during the 3-month wait. I had it through a group plan that my employer offers, but I'm sure there are also individual providers. My OH was pregnant when we first arrived so we used this scheme to cover pre-natal stuff.

Ours was a pay-up-front-and-reclaim system administered by StandardLife, so I have some idea of the costs associated. $30 to $50 for each visit to a family doctor; $50 to $70 for a brief consult with OB/GYN; $250 for an ultrasound scan. That's in the Halton Healthcare region, costs probably vary significantly across the province and between practitioners.

Thankfully we didn't have any serious emergencies requiring hospital visits. You'd be looking at a couple of grand per day for hospitalization plus the cost of any ER treatment. If that's not a risk you're comfortable with, find an insurer!

iaink

If you get lucky and get to talk to someone who actually knows the right answers

The OPs private gap insurance would usually cover any trip to see the doctor, but of course different policies cover different things at different price points.

I seem to recall visiting a clinic with some mundaine ailment in my first few months here, paying the $30 or $50 or whatever it was and submitting the claim to my insurer with no problems. A later appointment was preapproved in order to avoid the up front payout.

Generally things like 12 week scans are done outside the hospital system at an independent Xray/ Ultrasound clinic, so OHIP is not necesarily involved anyway unless they are to pay the bill...

jomill1967

Hello

We filled the three month OHIP gap with a BUPA International policy - we haven't claimed on it at all and our OHIP cards have arrived now so we never will! In the three months I registered with a doctor and was offered a new patient appointment, but to have gone before the OHIP card arrived would have costed me $50, so the receptionist explained that, unless I had an actual need to see the doctor, I'd be best to wait til the OHIP card arrived and then come for my new patient appointment when it would be free.

In fact I needed a prescription refill so I did end up paying the $50, but otherwise I wouldn't have done. It wasn't covered by our BUPA policy unfortunately but I'm sure other policies can be found that will cover this sort of thing. Ours just covered accidents and emergencies.

Hope this helps

Jo

G77

Quite....

What I was thinking was rather less polite than that!

Never met such a bunch of pedantic ****ers in my entire life!