LAKELAND - A provincial change over two years ago that made seniors lose health care coverage for mandatory driver medical exams, has made headway recently amid financial challenges.
Considering many seniors are living on fixed incomes from a mixture of pensions and savings, the added fee combined with other increases associated with the cost of living, may force some seniors to make tough financial decisions, said Les Diachinsky, the board president of the Lac La Biche Heritage Society who is turning 74-years-old this fall.
"It’s the exact same situation every day, seniors are pulled back on pensions, they’re not indexed based, so you get the same amount of money but spending gets higher and higher… here we go again another hit to make it more difficult for seniors to continue to drive.”
In 2020, the UCP instituted 11 amendments to fee structures and services available in physician offices for insured Albertans. The physician funding framework changes were generally covered by the Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan. Now, many seniors have to pay upwards of $85 out-of-pocket for the mandatory exam.
The test, which acts to verify seniors are healthy and can safely continue to hold a driver’s license, requires those who are 75 and 80-years-old — and every two years subsequently — to comply with the exam, according to provincial transportation regulations.
Provincial decision
While the change has been ongoing for more than two years and the province is “sympathetic” to the challenges seniors face, no other province provides the service either, in a statement from Mark Feldbusch, Communications Advisor with the Ministry of Health, in an email sent to Lakeland This Week.
“While we are sympathetic to seniors unaccustomed to paying out-of-pocket for this service, no other province pays for seniors’ driver medical exams through public health care dollars."
Moving forward, while physicians are recommended to continue offering seniors the same price of $85.58 for the recurring exam, ultimately it's up to the discretion of physician offices, Feldbusch explained, while also citing information from the provincial Transportation department.
“Physicians are allowed to set their own rates for uninsured services such as providing medical notes, driver’s medical exams, and reports. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta standards state that the amounts charged by physicians for uninsured services must reasonably reflect physician professional costs, administrative costs, and the patient’s ability to pay.”
Losing independence
For many seniors, the additional cost on top of fuel, insurance and vehicle maintenance might mean giving up driving altogether, a form of independence that is vital to many.
“Driving is of total importance to them and when you take that away and you add a cost on to their examination it's bad enough there is insurance too,” Diachinsky says while having heard the discussion come up during social activities at the local seniors centre.
“We’ve got people in our group that probably fall into that category,” he explained, referring to seniors who are a part of the Heritage Society and sometimes experience financial challenges.
For Plamondon resident George Gauthier, whose driver's license is up for renewal next May, the payment isn’t a challenge right now, but when the time comes to take the mandatory exam his financial situation may be different.
“I’ve got a year to go so it doesn't bother me now, but it might kick in when I get to that time; it’s a lot of money because we (seniors) are on a fixed income. Either I win the lottery to make sure — which I don’t think will happen,” said the 90-year-old.
“Everything is going up: gas, fuel, taxes, insurance, groceries… I don’t know if a guy can keep on living if it continues,” said Gauthier.
Not a crisis for all
Additionally, while the president of the local seniors centre has a little over a year before he is required to comply to both the medical exam and the roughly $85 cost, Diachinsky acknowledges that his financial situation isn’t as dire as some of the over 45,000 seniors in Alberta.
Diachinsky admits while he and his wife’s retirement income includes multiple pension streams, not everybody is as fortunate.
“I’m unique and that’s also a unique situation, that’s not the normal person,” he says, explaining the challenges that widows and widowers face, for example, or a single senior who has never been married.
But, if their retirement plans change, it might mean cutting back on their spending habits, now that they are paying much more on basic necessities, he added.
“My pension money is being stretched thinner and thinner all the time. Is it a breaking point for me personally? No… but you have to cut back somewhere else,” he says. For now, that may mean making smarter choices or cutting back on purchasing Christmas gifts for family members, perhaps.
