Emergency Medical Costs in Canada

Canadian Hospital Rates

To give you a general idea of just how expensive medical care can be in Canada, here are some sample costs taken from various hospitals across the country…

Non-Resident Rates

Province	Hospital & City	Emergency Room	Daily Ward	Intensive Care	Effective Date
British Columbia	Vancouver General St Paul’s – Vancouver BC Children’s – Vancouver BC Women’s – Vancouver	$750 $750 $995 $750	$3,530 $3,530 $7,133 $7,133	$13,665 $ 9,885 $13,665 $13,665	2017
Alberta	Royal Alexandra – Edmonton University Hospital – Edmonton	– _	$3,685 $4,998	$ 8,233 $15,528	2014
Manitoba	Winnipeg Health Sciences		$3,148	$10,621	2014
Ontario	Sunnybrook – Toronto Queensway Carleton – Ottawa	$800 $618	$3,700 $2,841	$5,560 $5,181	2017 2015
Quebec	McGill Health Sciences – Montreal	$700	$4,120	$12,270	2017
Atlantic Canada	George L. Dumont – Moncton NB	–	$2,170	$6,234	2014

Note: Hospital fees DO NOT include fees for attending physicians, surgeons, etc.

Uninsured Resident Rates

Province	Hospital & City	Emergency Room	Daily Ward	Intensive Care	Effective Date
British Columbia	Vancouver General St Paul’s – Vancouver BC Children’s – Vancouver BC Women’s – Vancouver	$335 $335 $465 $335	$1,456 $1,476 $3,328 $3,328	$5,247 $5,292 $4,416 $4,416	2017
Ontario	Sunnybrook – Toronto Queensway Carleton – Ottawa	$400 $618	$1,720 $1,894	$3,600 $5,181	2017 2015
Quebec	McGill Health Sciences – Montreal	$700	$4,120	$12,270	2017

Note: Hospital fees DO NOT include fees for attending physicians, surgeons, etc.

Additional Costs

There are many other costs to consider such as ambulance charges, operating room costs, doctor’s and anaesthetist’s fees, diagnostics, scans, and prescriptions.

Additional Costs – Queensway Carleton Hospital, Ottawa

Additional Fees (Effective 2015)	Non-Resident	Uninsured Resident
Day Surgery for outpatient	$3,495	$2,330
X-ray, varied	$49 and up	$33 and up
MRI	$1,352	$2,028
CT Scan	$1,418	$2,127
High Risk Ultrasound	$309	$309
Lab Tests, each	$125	$125
Ambulance Charges, each trip	$138	$138
Casting, varied	$20 and up	$20 and up
Rehabilitation & Mobility Appliances	$2 – $240	$2 – $240

Note: The fees above are Hospital fees only. Physicians fees are are billed separately by the physician.

Total Possible Costs

Here are a couple of possible scenarios based on the information given above:

“John’s Story”…

Let’s imagine that “John” has come to Canada for a 3 week holiday. He’s saved up for a long time to cover his trip and wants to budget carefully to get the most out of his savings. John considers Emergency Medical Insurance to be money that could be better spent elsewhere – After all, he’s fit and healthy, and has never been involved in an accident of any kind, so he feels the odds of anything happening to him are slim to none.

John wants to take in as much of Canada as he can during his stay. He rents a car from the airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia and plans to drive across the country, staying in motels along the route wherever he happens to be at nightfall.

On day 4 of his cross-country trip he is having trouble finding an available motel room – everywhere he tries is fully-booked. He’s starting to get sleepy after having driven for over 6 hours but decides to try to make it to Ottawa which is only another 130km away.

The next thing John remembers is regaining consciousness surrounded by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, his rental car crumpled around him, and in a great deal of pain.

John is rushed to the closest hospital, the Queensway Carleton in Ottawa, where he is diagnosed with internal bleeding, concussion, and multiple fractures. It is 12 days before John is well enough to be discharged from the hospital.

Let’s run the figures on the cost of his hospital stay:

Disclaimer: Please note this is a fictitious story and the following
figures are based on best guesses from figures given in 2015.

2 Days in Intensive Care	$10,362
10 Days in a Daily Ward	$28,410
2 Ultrasounds (to check internal bleeding)	$ 618
CT Scan (to check severity of head injury)	$ 1,418
X-rays (to assess his multiple fractures)	$ 360
Lab Tests	$ 250
Ambulance	$ 138
Casting (Leg and Arm)	$ 190
Mobility Appliances	$ 180
TOTAL	$41,926
plus 13% Ontario HST Tax	$ 5,450
Grand Total for just the hospital fees	$47,376

On top of the figures above, John will be billed separately by the anaesthetist and surgeon (for the surgery needed to pin his broken femur), and by his attending physician. This will add several thousand more to the final bill.
Adding insult to injury, he also needed expensive pain medications, both during his stay in hospital and for a further month after his release.

John only has about $4,000 left of the money that he had saved for his trip – he has no idea how he is going to be able to raise the rest.

Imagine if his injuries had been worse!

If John had purchased Visitors to Canada insurance, all of his medical bills would have been covered (apart from any deductible he chose to add to his policy).

In fact, it would have only cost him just over $100 for $100,000 of coverage.

“Liu and Meilin’s Story”…

Liu has recently retired and he and his wife, Meilin, have come from Zhejiang province, China to Vancouver to spend 4 months visiting their 3 adult children, and to meet their 7 young grandchildren for the first time.

Both seemed to be in good health but their son, Cheng, who works as a nurse in Vancouver General Hospital, knew just how quickly the bills could mount up for even a minor emergency, and took the sensible precaution of buying visitor’s insurance to cover them during their stay.

Cheng purchased coverage for $50,000 each, with a $500 deductible. The total cost to cover his father (age 65) and mother (age 62) for a period of 122 days was $739. He also made sure that the policy was purchased prior to their departure so they would be covered during the flight to Canada.

As it happens, this proved to be a very smart decision…

Liu was very nervous about flying so when he found himself experiencing nausea, cold sweats, and mild chest pains during much of the flight he initially put it down to panic attacks or indigestion caused by the stress. However, by the time they were approaching Vancouver airport, his condition had worsened and he was finding it hard to breathe. An EMT sitting across the aisle from him came to his aid and immediately notified the stewardess that he suspected Liu may be having a heart attack. The airport was notified and an ambulance was summoned to await their arrival to take Liu to hospital.

Liu was diagnosed with myocarditis most likely caused by a cold virus he’d had recently. Luckily, Liu’s heart attack was very mild, he suffered no lasting heart damage, and was released from hospital with a clean bill of health after monitoring his condition for 5 days.

The insurance policy came in handy again when Meilin, who had decided to take skiing lessons at Whistler Blackcomb, had a mishap and suffered a broken wrist.

Let’s take a look at what the costs could have been for both of their emergencies if their son hadn’t purchased visitor’s insurance…

Here are the figures on the cost of Liu’s hospital stay:

Disclaimer: Please note this is a fictitious story and the following
figures are based on best guesses from figures given ABOVE

1 Day in Intensive Care	$13,665
4 Days in a Daily Ward	$14,120
2 Ultrasounds (to check heart blood flow)	$ 618
Lab Tests	$ 110
Ambulance	$ 138
TOTAL	$28,651
plus 12% B.C. Tax	$ 3,438
Grand Total for just the hospital fees	$31,089

On top of the figures above, Liu will be billed separately by his attending physician. This will add a few thousand more to the final bill.

.
And here are the figures on the cost of Meilin’s visit to the ER:

Disclaimer: Please note this is a fictitious story and the following figures are
based on best guesses from figures given ABOVE

Emergency Room	$ 750
X-rays	$ 120
Casting (wrist)	$ 80
Mobility Appliances	$ 310
TOTAL	$1260
plus 12% BC Tax	$ 151
Grand Total for just the hospital fees	$1411

Meilin will be billed separately by her attending physician plus the prescription fees for the painkillers she needed.

Because Liu’s emergency costs had come uncomfortably close to the $50,000 policy limit, Cheng decided that if his parents visited again it would be well worth paying the additional $218 it would have cost to double their coverage to $100,000 each. Of course, for a shorter visit the additional cost would be proportionally less.