The " Medicaire " trap.

The Federal government provides a safety net to reimburse people whose out of pocket medical expenses exceed a certain limit. For pensioners that limit is $ 500 per year.
The system works well - provided you pay the doctor in full at the time of visit and reclaim from Medicaire. In such cases, Medicaire takes note of your contribution.
Unfortunately doctors have adopted a new way of billing - and this completely destroys the " safety net " provisions. Both specialists and GP's demand that the patient pays the " gap " between what the doctor charges and what Medicaire pays for the service at the time of the visit. The doctor then bills Medicaire for the balance.
The problem is that the doctor's paperwork makes no mention of the fee paid by the patient. As a result, the Medicaire cheque goes to the patient with the request that the patient pay this balance when forwarding the cheque to the doctor.
Thousands of patients must be missing out on qualification for the safety net because Medicaire has no knowledge of their out of pocket expenses.
The situation could easily be remedied. All that is required is for doctors to change their method of billing Medicaire. If they clearly show the patient contribution as paid then the Medicaire cheque will go directly to the doctor, not to the patient - and Medicaire will have a correct evaluation of the patient's progress towards meeting the safety net criteria.
It will take government direction to ensure that this happens, but maybe the government is less than interested because if patients miss out on the safety net this saves the government money !