On May 12, Benefits Canada hosted a webinar to discuss the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts during the coronavirus crisis, as well as some key policy issues for Canadian insurers and their potential impact from the private-payer perspective. Since the end of April, 139 coronavirus treatments have been under investigation and Health Canada has approved several clinical trials […]
Private drug plans saw a slight uptick in costs in 2019 due to the increased use of specialty drugs and higher price points for traditional medications, according to Express Scripts Canada’s annual drug trends report. The report found private drug plan spending per claimant increased one per cent over 2018’s figures. Plans’ annual spend per claimant on […]
Employers should be closely examining the underlying drivers of cost growth in their drug plans, according to a new report by Innovative Medicines Canada. “Typically, [plan sponsors] get their report at the end of the year, they’ll see a cost for their drug plan and they don’t know what’s driving it,” says Joe Farago, the […]
Mental health is the third largest health spend in terms of benefits plan management, according to Derek Weir, manager of health benefit solutions at Medavie Blue Cross. “Fifty-three per cent of Canadians consider anxiety and depression ‘epidemic’ in Canada and 85 per cent say mental-health services are among the most underfunded in health care,” he said […]
Looking ahead to 2020, the big story for health benefits is often avoided because it isn’t easy to address. It’s the elephant in the room. Over the past year, there’s been no shortage of momentum in new and emerging product offerings in the health benefits space — everything from digital cognitive behavioural therapy to virtual […]
When it came to asking his employer to add continuous glucose monitoring to its benefits package, John Whitehead, a level-two food server at Niagara Casinos, went all in. He’s had type 1 diabetes for years, and lived through many technological developments to help manage his condition. While he says blood glucose monitoring represented a major improvement, it […]
As the prevalence of diabetes continues to rise, so do the increases in cost, according to Adam Hotchkiss, medical science liaison at Novo Nordisk Canada, during Benefits Canada‘s 2019 Halifax Benefits Summit on Sept. 24. “In 2010, $11.7 billion was spent in Canada on the treatment of diabetes as well as its complications,” he said. “This is […]
Since diabetes is a progressive disease, it’s important to get treatment in the middle, according to Dr. Thomas Ransom, endocrinologist at the Nova Scotia Health Authority, during Benefits Canada‘s 2019 Halifax Benefits Summit on Sept. 24. If diabetes is under-treated, blood sugars go up and stick to things — eyes, kidneys, nerves, feet, he said. And if it’s […]
The Health Association of Nova Scotia, which has a number of different employers in its benefits plan, cites rheumatoid arthritis medications as its top drugs in terms of cost. “Chronic disease, in terms of inflammatory disease — not just for rheumatoid, but for Crohn’s disease as well — those are what we’re seeing from a […]
When an employee with diabetes is working in a safety-sensitive role experiences severely low blood sugar, what are the ramifications for employers? This question was addressed at Benefits Canada’s 2019 Chronic Disease at Work conference in Toronto in June. “For you, as an employer, what if this was your employee on their way to meet […]