The Honourable Anita Anand, President of the Treasury Board and the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, made the following statement today:
"We share the concerns of Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP) members posted abroad who have faced long wait times to reach an agent at the MSH International contact centre and who are continuing to face delays in claims being reimbursed.
Public servants working abroad do not have access to provincial health care coverage and therefore rely on the reimbursements provided to them through MSH International, a sub-contractor of Canada Life.
Those who dedicate their careers to serving Canadians from abroad must be able to obtain timely reimbursement of their health expenses. We are engaged daily with Canada Life to resolve this issue. Canada Life has assured us that they are working with MSH to implement a customer service action plan to reduce wait times and speed up claim reimbursements. When Canada Life introduced a similar plan in late 2023 for PSHCP members in Canada, significant improvements were achieved, including call centre wait times dropping to an average of 2 minutes to reach an agent. Claim reimbursement wait times have greatly improved as well, with an average 1-day turn around for online submissions and an average of 5 days for those submitted by mail. We are optimistic that this same approach will bring similar results for the MSH member experience.
Canada Life and MSH have indicated that they have brought on additional staff to answer phone calls and process claims. An online dashboard is now available that shows current claim processing times.
Plan members abroad can prioritize an urgent MSH claim using Canada Life's escalation process. MSH also updated its PSHCP Member online portal which now displays a simplified registration page, a detailed claims information page and gives members the ability to verify their explanation of benefits information.
With this action plan in place, we are starting to see improvements with reduced wait times to reach an MSH call centre agent and increased rates of claims processing. We continue to work with Canada Life to ensure that all PSHCP members, including those working abroad, get the service they deserve, when they need it."
