RTO HEALTH NOTES

	Your plan is member-generated. Your ideas or experiences are important. Phone our Health Services Representative, Peter VanKatwijk (748-5689) with any particular ideas you have about improvements, deletions, snags encountered, and successes. This will help our District to collate your concerns and pass them on to Toronto.
	Be sure to retain RTO Group Benefits and Travel Booklets for the next three years. Take these booklets with you on your travels. In the inside of your January 2008 " Out-of Province/Canada Travel Booklet " please note the new addition for 2008 regarding " any condition for which you were admitted to a hospital........." This can affect the coverage for your travels. You can also find the booklet by going to the RTO/ERO Home Page. At the bottom click on Group Benefits. Some issues of the RTO magazine, Renaissance, will have special tear-out sections which should be filed with your benefits booklet.
	For updated information, refer to the RTO website (members-only section) [www.rto-ero.org] and access the Health Committee section. Monthly read or print the Health Matters notes. These give topical and valuable information.
	Effective Jan. 1, 2007, all out-of-province/Canada claims are handled by Mondial Assistance. Contact them at the first sign of any medical emergency, no matter how small. Phone them at 1-800-249-6656 before you go on your trip for health and trave awareness regarding your destinations. It is a free call. Some U.S. medical facilities try to bill participants for claims incurred even though Mondial Assistance [previously called World Access (WAC)] has already paid the bill. In some cases, the facilities have even turned the demand for payment over to a collection agency. This can be most disturbing to the individual participant but unfortunately seems to becoming a more common occurrence in the travel industry. If you are contacted for payment of a travel claim that you’ve made under the RTO/ERO Health Plans, contact WAC immediately.
	You can, with the proper form, now get a 200 day supply of medication if you are travelling for an extended period of time outside of province.The amount payable will be subject to the calendar year maximum for the year in which the drug is purchased.

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