October 19, 2020
Helping you live a healthier life
With fall now in full swing, Sun Life continues to evolve our business and benefits solutions to meet the many emerging challenges we all face. We’ve continued to put measures in place to support the health of you and your plan members.
Back to school – a focus on mental health
A new school year always brings excitement, but the transition this year has arrived with additional stresses. That’s made potential mental health issues front and centre. We wanted to ensure that mental health resources were front and centre as well.
Our webinar from Lumino Health, “This year’s back-to-school conversations,” offers guidance on navigating the back-to-school transition. Our resource sheet is a great reminder of the Sun Life and other mental health resources available for both children and parents.
We’ve also taken two other steps to help students stay healthy:
- Extending over-age student coverage. Some schools in Canada remain closed and some programs aren’t restarting this fall. For eligible over-age students, we’re extending our over-age student coverage from September 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020.
- Coverage for students studying abroad. Some plan members may have a dependent who is, or will be, studying abroad.
- Students with an approved extension. If we’ve approved a request for an extension of medical emergency coverage, we’ll continue to honour their extension. We outlined the coverage period in their approval letter from us.
- Students without an approved extension. These students have coverage for the trip duration limit outlined in the contract. For now, we’re not extending coverage beyond the trip duration limit. This is due to various travel advisories from the Government of Canada.
Speech from the Throne
Sun Life supports the federal government’s continued focus on pharmacare. We continue to endorse a blended public and private payer model that enables access to affordable medicines for all Canadians. We’re also pleased to see government support for mental health and virtual care.
Continued access to care
COVID-19 cases have begun to increase this fall, and access to care remains a critical concern. We’ve taken several steps to ensure plan members continue to gain access to the care they need.
- Extending health and dental admin exceptions. We’ve extended our waiver of certain health and dental admin requirements for another three months, to December 31, 2020.
This means we’ll keep paying claims up to December 31, 2020 that would normally require additional documentation. This includes signatures, referrals, or laboratory information for claims where we had information on file that has expired. For example:
- Prescriptions or doctor referrals for paramedical services
- Drug exception forms, which includes prior authorization and special authorization
- Provincial Specialty drug program responses or documentation
We currently plan to reinstate our usual requirements on January 1, 2021. But we’ll let you know if we need to extend the date again.
- Accepting claims prescribed by a nurse practitioner. Several months ago, we made a temporary change to our administrative practices. We began covering costs associated with specialist referrals and prescriptions for medical supplies and equipment from nurse practitioners.
We’ve now made this change permanent with an amendment to our Extended Health Care (EHC) contract wording. We’ll treat certain nurse practitioner prescriptions as if they were prescribed or ordered by a doctor, subject to provincial laws.
- Virtual care – easy onboarding and registration. We launched Lumino Health Virtual Care to our EHC Clients earlier this year. As of September 30, 2020, this solution is available to all our Clients, including those without an EHC plan. It’s already helped thousands of our Clients. They can quickly access the medical care they need from the safety and convenience of their own homes.
For more information, visit sunlife.ca/gbvirtualcare. Virtual care doesn’t replace the role of a family doctor. However, it’s proven to be a critical primary care support for thousands of plan members.
We’re here for you
The impacts of the pandemic remain dynamic – and we remain ready to innovate as circumstances change. Our promise to support you and your employees is unwavering. And collectively, we can all make a difference in helping Canadians live healthier lives.
Stay safe and be well!