Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Yesterday I received in the Canada Post a very interesting package from my family Doctor. I am one  of the lucky Canadians who actually has a family doctor that I can go see on a regular basis (and make appointments with). He is a good Doctor, and has served me and my wife well over the years.

The mailing outlined to me the fees that my Doctor will be charging for various services not covered under the Ontario Health Insurance Program, which included:

• Prescription renewal (over the phone) $11.72
• Back to work note  $14.45
• Wart Removal $20.00
• etc., etc., etc.,

I wondered why some of this stuff wasn’t covered under the OHIP program, but I am not going to  stop my Doctor from getting paid for services that he does either. If you are asking my opinion, this kind of extra charging is what is going to kill OHIP and I think all this should be paid for in some fashion as part of my medical taxes (but we can discuss that further later, just my opinion).

I then turned the page and saw that in fact this was not just a list of service fees, it was my Doctor offering me an extended warranty program (effectively). For a fee, I can either enroll myself and/or my family in the Coverage plan, and many fees would be waived.

Naturally with any good coverage plan there is the Basic or Standard Plan and the Premium Plan. In the Standard plan a few of the services are covered (mostly administrative), however under the Premium Plan I can get full coverage from all service fees:

• Basic Family $100
• Premium Family $130

Let me be clear very few of these services are actual medical procedures (Wart removal, uninsured vaccinations, TB Skin test and driver’s physical seem to be the only services that are Medical in nature, the rest are simply administrative services (notes, referrals, etc.,)).

I did have a “WTF” moment after I finished reading the letter (and then I read the front page which explained it all to me, yes, I should have read the letter in the order it was sent).  I am not happy about having to pay for all of these services, but this seems to be the Normal Business Procedure for Doctors these days, but now, my Doctor is branching out into the Insurance Business?

The business of running a Doctor’s office is not a trivial one, I fully agree, and there is an overhead involved that needs to be reimbursed in some fashion, but is this the best way to recuperate your operating expenses? None of these expenses would be covered by my Health Insurance at work (I don’t think, I should check), so I am the one that must pay for these services (if I need them).

What is next? My Doctor will start offering Health Insurance like Sun Life? Might not be a bad idea really, if he starts selling Health Insurance he’d make good coin there too.

Any opinions on what my gentle readers think of this program?

• Should I sign up for it?
• Is it justified that my Doctor offers this?

This week I took a short trip for my company, and I was astounded at how much it ended up costing, just in flight charges.

My company used to have a travel department, where people booked trips for you, found the best deals, but also discussed with you about how you wanted your travel to work. This task was then outsourced and is now being run by Amex Travel, which has a Web Portal that all travel booking must be done through. The booking of the trip is chocked full of questions and then it gives you a staggering array of choices and decisions about cheaper flights and such, which I usually ignore, and then get a nasty note saying I am not playing nicely, but that is for another posting.

This week’s one day travel’s costs were:

• Air Fare alone was $356  which isn’t too bad given I booked fairly late, and I was only doing a day trip.
• Add on a $10 Air Transport Tax
• Add $20 in GST
• Add $35 Airport Improvement Fee
• And you end up with $420.94 total cost
• Whoops forgot there is an $8 service fee that Amex travel throws on top of this, that you only see on your credit card later.

Fine, I had to travel and I had to pay, so I booked it. Away we went, our meetings went well and we finished early, so then we tried come home on an earlier flight. There was room on an earlier flight, but due to the type of the flight booked, I had to pay a $55.00 re-booking fee on top of all of this.

I am in the wrong business, airline travel has more hidden fees and tricks than the Mutual Fund business (OK maybe not, but it feels that way). Luckily I didn’t pay for this out of my own pocket, but now I know why I don’t fly places any more.

I grow weary of losing money $2 at a time on all the service fees thrown on top of the original price of things. Can’t someone just quote me a price and then not kill me adding more to it?

After posting yesterday’s best of: Free Banking post, I received my monthly balance sheet from the bank for my bank account, and dutifully I went into Quicken and ran my monthly reconcile of my chequing account. At the end of the document from the bank it had this very interesting statement:

You have saved $72.50 in Service Charges this month

I beg your pardon? The statement reflect that if I was paying for the $12.95 a month TD program, that I might not be paying for right now, I have saved $72.50. If I was gouged for $73 in bank service charges for a month, I’d start putting my money in a mattress or carrying it around in my shoe.

Then I started to wonder is there anyone out there who actually pays that much a month to the banks? I really hope that is not the case, as you saw yesterday, I think it’s ridiculous to pay $13 a month, $73 a month would be highway robbery. What services could be worth that much?

• Tellers deliver money directly to my house?
• Bank Manager drops by and helps clean out my garage for the spring?
• FREE MONEY! (two words I love to see)
• Interest payments that amount to more than a single bus ticket in value?

Given none of those services are offered by my branch of TD, my guess is those service charges of $73 are fiction, since no one would pay it, would they?

This is why I invest in banks.

Snow and Flooding

With the snow pack in Ottawa disappearing the flood planes of Ottawa are filling up quickly. My area of Ottawa is less likely to flood, however, I am not that far from the Mighty Jock River so there is a chance yet.

How much does flood insurance cost? What does it cover? Is it better to just invest in a sump pump? I have a good shop vac for small wet spills, but if my basement floods, I would have to run to Canadian Tire to get a real pump!

Is flood insurance worthwhile? Opinions?