I was a UK *resident *until 4 days ago. I never had to pay anything. Its different for residents who usually are covered, as opposed to visitors who usually are not.
As another point of interest, if someone on the Quebec health plan, for example, needs medical care in Ontario, payment is usually handled in two ways:
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you provide your Quebec card and fill out an additional form for out-of-province care, and the whole bill goes to the Quebec government
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with or without the health card, and likely with the same form, you are billed for the services and you can submit the bill/receipts to the Quebec government for reimbursement.
In my experience, 1 was most common, but I lived in a large city, so 2 might be more common in rural areas. Pretty much every province has an agreement with every other province for billing health services provided to each other’s residents.
When someone moves from one province to the other, there is usually a lag before you are eligible for coverage in the new province. Between Quebec and Ontario it is 3 months, and I think the previous provincial government’s health plan will continue to cover you until the new one kicks in, but I’m not sure. I never had to get health care during those transfer months (I moved to Ontario and back, so I did the switch both ways).
The current OHIP health card looks like this. This is the Quebec one, often referred to as the “carte soleil” (sun card). Most provinces and territories either call them “Health Cards” or “Care Cards”.
Actually that’s not the newest card. I got my super-super new one about two months ago. It looks a lot more like the new driver’s licences. It has two photos. This compares the new cards to the other non-red/white version.
ETA: One thing that’s a little different from the driver’s licence. On the DL, the second, smaller photo has holographic properties, on the health car the second, smaller photo does not. And presently the red/white version of the card is still valid. I’ve been using mine until they sent me a notice to come get the new fancy card.
Well whadda ya know. I didn’t know that they’d redesigned the Ontario health card. Mine isn’t up for renewal until 2011, same as my driver’s licence.
hmmm. What about my daughter, born in the US, to a NZ citizen? Is my wife still covered even though she no longer lives there?
Are the new Ontario Health cards valid as a photo ID? I think that was a serious problem with the older ones I linked to (it’s the one I had)- you couldn’t even buy beer with them as ID! Quebec health cards are valid ID (not that that helped me much when I was a student trying to buy beer in Ontario; no one recognized it!)
I’m an American and broke my ankle and a couple of bones in my foot while working in Toronto.
As to the OP, yes I paid for it myself on a credit card, and they gave me the paperwork to file with my insurance company back home.
Now, to the thing that amazed me about the experience… So, I broke my foot and arrive at the hospital, where the first thing they do is get a credit card if you aren’t a citizen. I get taken back, seen by a doctor, sent to get multiple X-rays, then examined by a specialist, then give a leg brace/removable cast and crutches and some pain killers, and told to come back in 2 weeks for a follow up exam. I was at the hospital for about 6 hours when all was said and done. I’m thinking that this is going to cost a fortune… all the people I’ve seen, X-rays, drugs, etc. I eventually get the itemized bill and the whole thing was less than $700 dollars. In the US, I bet this would have been well into the thousands of dollars. And looking at the bill just made sense as to what you think things would actually cost… the crutches cost $20 bucks, 30 minutes of the specialist’s time was $75, etc. Unlike in the US where everything seems to be marked up, and then insurance companies ‘haggle’ the price back down.
Depends which province. Mine (Alberta) is just a piece of paper with my name and healthcare number on it. When I hauled it out of my wallet a few days ago it was getting sufficiently tattered that I began wondering whether I should get it laminated.
Alberta ones don’t.
Check here to see, Citizenship Act of 1977 in NZ
And the original Ontario cards had no expiration date. I still have my original.
OH NOES! Health cards with expiration dates – the Canadian death committies pick the date for you to expire and put it on your ID!
You read that Spider Robinson story, didn’t you?Old guy, last of his farming kind in the indistrialized Annapolis Valley, ruminates on the changes that have eaten his farm. No-one understands him anymore; no-one misses the things he does, like wildlife and clean air. It’s his birthday and he realizes he’s just going through the motions; he has nothing to look forward to, nothing to live for. Then he notices that his birth certificate has an expiry date–and it’s today. “Downstairs, for the first time in years, there is a knock at the door.”
For ID in mortgage transactions, no, Ontario photo ID health cards are not acceptable – all sorts of strange and wonderful ID is acceptable for mortgages, but not Ontario photo ID health cards. As far as purchasing alcohol goes, I have no IDa as to what is acceptable and what is not.
Interesting. I just ploughed through part of the Ministry of Health’s website, and the red-and-white cards are valid ‘unless you are told otherwise by OHIP’. Link. Seems tto me that they should just bite the bullet and require everyone to get a photo card. Is there a reason that they aren’t?
I had a similar experience in England in 1996. I was studying there for six months but wasn’t supposed to be covered by the NHS. When I got sick I originally went to a private doctor, but since he was incompetent* I only got sicker and ended up in a public hospital for eight days. On my way in I asked the paramedics about payment and they said “you’re not going to be charged anything”. And I wasn’t.
*The treatment I received in the public NHS hospital, on the other hand, was excellent
You mean that US traitor who became a Canadian? 
Actually, I have not read Robinson , despite having read a great deal of SciFi. He’s been on my reading to do list for over a quarter of a century, but I still have not got around to it.
The meme also occured in Nolan and Johnson’s “Logan’s Run.”
Because there isn’t a compelling reason to do so, I’d assume.
The purpose of adding expiration dates was to combat fraud. If my health card number is comprimised I imagine they’ll invalidate it, but if it’s not, why bother?
Absolutely 100% true story: I know from inside sources the government put together a “Fraud center” in Kingston for people to report fraudulent cards. The company that installed the call center system was commissioned to put in an absolutely top-of-the-line Nortel system to support 24 operators plus supervisors and all the bells and whistles. As part of the package they offered to monitor the system for some time after installation to make recommendations.
After a few months their recommendation was to get rid of most of the system because the centre was only getting three or four calls a day. They went in and found, to their amazement, that most of the employees spent their entire day playing cards, surfing the net, sleeping. The day shift supervisor brought in newspapers and magazines so he’d have something to read all day. But their suggestion was refused. The jobs had been budgeted for, the union wouldn’t allow them to be cut, and so the call centre went on, maybe even goes on to this day, employing thirty people doing next to absolutely nothing.
Going back to another job I once had–selling beer in an Ontario Beer Store–the rule was that any government-issued document with a photo, a signature, and a date of birth was acceptable. Thus, for example, driver’s licenses, passports, and military ID were all acceptable. Library cards (no photo) and student IDs (no date of birth) were not. Note I worked for the Beer Store before Ontario health cards had photos, so they were not acceptable anyway.
I was once in an Ontario convenience store when someone got carded for buying cigarettes. He tried to use his Ontario photo health card for ID, and was told he couldn’t. (He was further told that his driver’s license would be perfectly fine though.) If the Ontario photo health card isn’t acceptable for buying alcohol or tobacco, or in mortgage transactions, it would seem that, in spite of having a photo, a signature, and a date of birth; its uselessness as a piece of ID in matters other than the provision of health services is more a policy of the Ontario Ministry of Health rather than any deficiency in the document itself.
Aside to Muffin – Here in Alberta, the Law Society requires us to get copies of two pieces of client ID. One of the pieces can be an Alberta health card: no photo, no signature, unlaminated heavy paper. Maybe it’s my Ontario experience in carrying a plastic photo health card, but I’m always a little leery when somebody here wants to present an Alberta health card as ID–thankfully, the other piece they present is invariably a driver’s license or passport, so that’s reassuring. But still, an Alberta health card as ID … :eek: