Covered Conditions

Please note that, as of 4-Mar-10, the Canadian government's federal budget caused changes to eligible covered conditions for a PHSP. Please click here for details.

Covered conditions

Premiums for health care plans:

• Premiums paid to any non-government medical or hospital care plan.

Professional services:

Any service performed by a qualified medical practitioner†, including but not limited to the following:

Dental services:

Laboratory examinations and tests:

Prescribed medical treatments:

Medicines:

• All prescription drugs
• Oxygen
• Tapes or tablets (for sugar content tests by diabetics, if prescribed)
• Vitamin B12 (for pernicious anemia)
• Liver Extract (by injection for pernicious anemia)
• OTC drugs when prescribed by a dentist, medical or naturopathic doctor, and recorded and dispensed by a licensed pharmacist

Other materials and apparatus, which don't require a prescription:

• External breast prosthesis
• Any device designed to assist walking where the individual has mobility impairment
• Contact lenses/eye glasses
• Devices designed to assist a person to use bathtubs, showers, or toilets
• Devices designed to enable individuals with mobility impairment to operate a vehicle
• Electronic or computerized environmental control systems for individuals with severe and prolonged mobility restrictions
• Electronic speech synthesizers for most individuals
• Extremity pumps or elastic support hose to reduce lymph edema swelling
• Heat monitors or pace makers
• Hospital beds, if required in home
• Inductive coupling osteogenesis stimulator
• Infusion pumps for diabetics, including peripherals
• Monitors attached to babies identified as being prone to sudden infant death syndrome
• Optical scanners or similar devices for a blind individual to enable him/her to read print
• Orthopedic shoes or boots
• Oxygen tent
• Power operated guided chair installation for stairways
• Power operated guided lifts and transportation equipment designed to allow access to buildings, vehicles, or to allow wheelchair access to a vehicle
• Synthetic speech systems, Braille printers, and large print-on-screen devices that enable blind persons to utilize computers
• Swelling syringes
• Television closed-captioning decoders
• Wigs if required as a result of disease, accident, or medical treatment

Other expenditures:

• Ambulance charges
• Prescription birth control pills
• Rehabilitative therapy, lip reading and sign language training
• Specially trained animals to assist blind, deaf, or severely impaired persons, including the cost of their care and maintenance
• Transportation costs (to hospital, clinic or doctor's office to obtain services not otherwise available)

Materials and apparatus which are prescribed by a recognized medical practitioner:

• Any device to aid the hearing of a deaf person including bone conduction telephone receivers, extra loud audible signals and devices to permit volume adjustment of telephone equipment above normal levels
• Artificial eye
• Artificial kidney machine, including installation, operating costs
• Blood sugar level measuring devices for diabetics
• Brace for a limb
• Catheters, catheter trays, tubing, and diapers, disposable briefs required by incontinent persons
• Colostomy pads
• Crutches
• Hernia truss
• Laryngeal speaking aid
• Spinal brace
• Wheelchair
• External breast prosthesis

What's not covered

• Air conditioners, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, or air cleaners
• Special foods or beverages are not a deductible expense for tax purposes. However, if said food or beverages are taken to alleviate or treat an illness and not nutritional, they may be allowed.‡
• Health programs offered by resort hotels, health clubs / Athletic therapy
• Non-prescription birth control devices
• Over the counter drugs, vitamins etc. except as prescribed above
• Medical expenses for which you are reimbursed or are entitled to be reimbursed from other plans
• Illegal operations or drugs
• Scales for the weighing of food
• Wigs, except where an individual has suffered hair loss due to disease, treatment or accident
• Toothpaste, toothbrush, dental floss
• Maternity clothes
• Antiseptic diaper service
• Payments to a municipality where a municipality has employed a doctor to provide services within the community

* Eligible expenses pursuant to IT-519R2. (This list, while comprehensive, may not be complete and is subject to change.)

† A qualified medical practitioner means a person who is authorized to practice in accordance to the laws of the province and certified according to the practitioner's governing body.

‡ A letter must accompany such claims from a medical doctor.