Ontario will launch a public consultation on banning exclusive deals
That measure would essentially ban “closed” preferred provider networks (PPN), in which patients can only get medication reimbursed if it comes from specific pharmacies that have confidential business agreements with their insurance company.
Quebec is currently the only province that bans PPNs.
The networks came into the spotlight in early 2024 after Manulife Financial Corporation and Loblaw announced that patients taking certain specialty drugs would have to buy their medication only from Loblaw-owned pharmacies.
Insurance companies claim closed PPNs will help ordinary people and reduce premiums.
The Ontario College of Pharmacists claims closed PPNs are a potential risk to patients’ health.
Read more about the issue:
https://carleton.ca/ghostmanagement/wp-content/uploads/Brief-PPN-Ontario_QG-FInal.pdf
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/manulife-loblaw-deal-deliver-specialty-drugs-1.7098861
Insurance companies claim closed PPNs will help ordinary people and reduce premiums.
Not in the slightest bit believable
This is horrible. PPNs are only good for the insurer. Not exactly the same, but when I was going through university in the early aughts, my parent’s insurance had some pretty stupid restrictions on medications. I wasn’t allowed to see the on-campus medical team to get prescriptions renewed, it HAD to be from my GP, and the prescriptions HAD to be filled within so many kms of my home address. No idea how they handled medical emergencies, but I heard horror stories of classmates being stuck with large prescription bills for a couple inhalers because they couldn’t get “home”.
Quebec seems to be on the avant-garde, always. Anything that makes the market resemble what is done in America should never have been allowed and should have cost them more for even having the audacity to try
This kind of activity should prompt regulatory investigation from every possible angle. All involved businesses should be gone through with a fine tooth comb. Every louse found: squished. Incarnations and expropriation at the highest level responsible for every violation.
Of course it should be specifically banned. retroactively.
Huh. I didn’t know it was like that outside Québec. That sounds so… American
Outrageous!
