Protect Yourself when you Travel

The Medical Services Plan strongly advises BC residents to purchase additional health insurance when traveling to other Canadian provinces or outside Canada to cover the cost of services not included in the Plan. Please review the following important information when planning any absence from BC to ensure that you have adequate medical protection. Don’t learn the hard way how financially devastating it can be to travel outside of British Columbia without adequate medical protection.

The Ministry of Health Services provides detailed information about your eligibility for medical coverage in a variety of situations at the Leaving BC link.

Topics covered include:

Temporary Absence from BC;
Studying Outside BC;
Permanent Move from BC;
Medical Care Outside BC;
Our of Province Emergency Medical Care;
Out of Country Emergency Medical Care;
Seeking Medical Care Outside Canada

Protecting Your Lifetime Maximum (Extended Health Plan)

You should consider purchasing additional medical protection prior to leaving the province. And, please be aware that not all travel insurance packages are created equally, so it’s important to understand how your travel insurance pays out should you incur out-of-province or out-of-country medical expenses.

Please check your additional travel insurance plan carefully!

Some carriers may require that you first exhaust the lifetime maximum under your extended health group plan before they will pay any portion of the claims. That is, rather than being the first payer (i.e. after any portion covered by MSP), some travel insurance plans establish themselves as the second payer (i.e., after extended health).

Why is this risky?

Your Extended Health Plan covers you as an active public service employee to a lifetime maximum of $250,000. This coverage is meant to assist you with your day-to-day medical and dental expenses.

Emergency, out-of-country expenses can be extremely expensive. And, depending on the nature of the illness, you could easily exceed your $250,000 lifetime maximum, and, should that occur, you will no longer have extended health coverage (you will have used it all up). Why risk it?

Claiming out-of-country medical expenses?

Should you incur any out-of-country medical expenses, you will need to submit a claim for reimbursement of eligible medical expenses to MSP and to whichever carrier is first after MSP, and then, if applicable, to the second carrier. You are responsible for ensuring that claims are made in a timely manner and for collecting the appropriate documentation (e.g., receipts) along the way.

Travel Insurance through Pacific Blue Cross

Pacific Blue Cross (PBC), your Extended Health Plan carrier, has travel insurance plans available to purchase if you are traveling outside of the province. You are under no obligation to purchase travel insurance from PBC, but there is some advantage to doing so. First, Pacific Blue Cross is the first payer after MSP so the lifetime maximum of your extended health plan will be protected. Second, PBC offer a 20% discount for members of our group plan.

You can purchase individual travel coverage through Pacific Blue Cross online from their website or by calling directly. See contacts for their information.

Medi-Assist Travel Emergency Numbers

The extended health plan includes a worldwide medical assistance provision called Medi-Assist that provides communication services from anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Trained multilingual assistance personnel are there to help you locate medical care, arrange emergency and routine medical transportation, assist travel companions; contact relatives, employers and personal physicians; and assist in facilitating claims payment. Please see the Medi-Assist brochure for more information available at: www.pac.bluecross.ca/mediassist/default.html

Medi-Assist provides advice and coordinates services at no additional charge. However, Medi-Assist does not pay for the services that you may require. The actual cost for any service(s) received is your responsibility. As outlined in the previous section, expenses for any such services may be claimable through MSP, through travel insurance purchased by you or through your Extended Health Plan (until your plan maximum is reached).