A new agreement has been reached between the Association québécoise des pharmaciens propriétaires (AQPP, the provincial association of pharmacist-owners), insurers, and third-party payers. This is the first major update to occur since the creation of Quebec’s Public Prescription Drug Insurance (PPDIP) in 1997.

Since January­ 1, 2020, defined contribution (“DC”) pension plan sponsors may offer variable benefits under the Pension Benefits Act of Ontario from their pension plan. The variable benefit rules allow members of a DC pension plan to receive retirement income directly from the plan upon retirement, if allowed by the pension plan, as opposed to being required to transfer the balance of their DC account to an authorized vehicle or use it to purchase an annuity.

Several hot topics in the drug insurance industry caught our attention this past year, with many showing no signs of cooling off. We’ll be following things closely in 2020!

Here are the top 10 developments of 2019, in no particular order.

Are you one of the many regular readers who expect these parameters to come in pyramid form? This year, we modernized the way we present key social security parameters. This new version is available in an electronic format. It has links to many pages with highly relevant content (click on the dog-eared page icons).