Hi there,
Does anyone know how prescription medication for parents works under the super visa program? Visitors travel insurance only covers emergencies and new medical/health situations. But my parents have hypertension and are Diabetic and require prescription meds. Is there any insurance that provides this type of coverage for super visa applicants?
Thanks in advance!
Your best option is to send 3 month supply of their medication to Canada from their home country. If they require insulin that may not be possible due to the refrigeration but purchasing insulin will be very expensive in Canada. As already indicated supervisa is really emergency travel medical insurance and they may not cover emergencies related to their preexisting conditions so it is very important to read the fine print of your supervisa policy. For example treatment for hypertension and what is defined as stable or not could impact coverage for any cardiac medical emergencies. Any routine doctors appointments and medications are not usually covered and I would personally avoid making claims for minor emergencies like strep throat or pink eye for example just like you often do with car insurance. In my person opinion you really want to reserve the supervisa insurance policy for major emergencies to make sure you can find a policy to purchase. If you make a lot of claims you risk not being able to purchase another 1 year policy from the insurance company or buy a policy from another insurer.
For their visits they will have to pay out of pocket for routine healthcare and due to the shortage of physicians and/or wait times they may not be able to secure an appointment especially to see a specialist. For public hospitals usually physicians must see anyone with provincial healthcare before considering seeing anyone without provincial insurance. Given wait lists that will essentially mean that it would be impossible to see the specialist for routine care. Not all specialists are able to be seen at a private clinics in Canada. Private clinics tend to be limited to certain specialists at least at the moment. If your parents are seeing an endocrinologist, cardiologist, family doctor and even nephrologist given the diabetes and hypertension I would suggest that they visit all these physicians when they return to their home country hopefully annually if their health is relatively stable and when they return to Canada for another visit they will have had their health examined (including blood tests, things like echocardiograms, holter test, both had a colonoscopy if due for one or had any worrying systems, had a mammogram if due, completed any other scans, etc.) had prescriptions adjusted if necessary, etc. Then they can keep sending their medication from abroad in 3 month supplies from a family or friend in their home country as long as the medication is legal in Canada, is in it’s original format and it is prescribed by a doctor for the patient. If your parents use insulin this becomes much more complicated due to the cost of insulin in Canada. There will be no insurance policy that you can purchase that will cost less than the cost of your insulin. Insurance companies don’t knowingly lose money so they will only approve an insurance policy for prescription medication that costs more monthly than the amount of your current prescription medications.
