"Access to necessary medical care should be based on need and not an individual's ability to pay." - Health Minister Adrian Dix
B.C.’s Medical Services Commission is taking Telus Health to court over its subscription-based health service, alleging it amounts to illegal extra billing.
The commission applied today for an injunction against Telus Health’s LifePlus program in B.C. Supreme Court, arguing the private, fee-based health model contravenes the Medicare Protection Act, according to Health Minister Adrian Dix.
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Telus Health has not filed a statement in response.
Complaints about Telus’s LifePlus Program and other private fee-based services pushed Dix in February to ask the Medical Services Commission — governed by a body that includes doctors and government and public representatives — to review the practices to ensure they are not breaking Canadian law by allowing patients who pay a fee to jump the queue.
“It is very important to uphold the Medicare Protection Act, which is in place to preserve our publicly managed and fiscally sustainable health-care system for British Columbia,” Dix said in a statement on Thursday. “Access to necessary medical care should be based on need and not an individual’s ability to pay.”
Dix said he will let the legal process will proceed and “in the meantime, this government will continue to strongly defend our public health-care system.”
Some patients who reached out to Postmedia News in June said they were informed their family doctor was now working with Telus Health and the only way to continue seeing them was to pay thousands a year for the LifePlus program.
Telus Health’s LifePlus plan, which costs $4,650 for the first year and $3,600 annually in subsequent years, is touted by the company as offering personalized “preventative health and wellness” such as stress tests and checkups, assessments from dietitians, kinesiologists and occupational therapists.
The LifePlus service is often a perk for employees, such as top executives or lawyers, paid by their employer.
The Medical Services Commission completed its review in the fall but it was not made public.
Sonya Lockyer, vice-president of Telus Health Care Centres, told Postmedia News in June its LifePlus patients aren’t jumping the queue because the program does not provide services that are insured by the province’s Medical Services Plan.
There’s a false perception among patients, Lockyer said, that LifePlus guarantees fast-tracked access to publicly funded health services, such as appointments with specialists or MRIs, which is why Telus makes clear to patients that’s not the case.
In July, the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld B.C.’s ban on private health care, ruling that the province’s law prohibiting extra billing practices by doctors does not violate the Constitution. Dix at the time called that a “great victory” for the province, however the three justices acknowledged that people are suffering and dying from waiting too long for necessary medical care.
More to come…
kderosa@postmedia.com
