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Q&A: What Is It Like Helping Clients Navigate VISP?

Day 2 · 3:52:18 · Jasmeet Grewal · Dean Allison · Daniel Freiheit · Shawn Buckley

  • 📁 Demanding records direct from overwhelmed providers instead of sworn affidavits causes major delays; court standards should suffice.
  • 🔄 High case-manager turnover produced confusion and lost files, though PHAC appears to recognize the problem.
  • 🆕 New VIAP removes income and death-benefit caps and reopens administratively denied files, yet medical-review-board membership remains opaque.

Lawyer’s on-the-ground critique of records rules, staffing and lingering transparency gaps.

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Transcript

Jasmeet Grewal · 3:52:18

So the, the, the main issue I have, and if it's one recommendation I can make for Public Health Agency of Canada going forward, is the chain of custody for medical records. The, the major, major issue is that they're asking for medical records to come directly from the medical care provider. Our doctors are already overwhelmed overwhelmed. The, the admin staff is already overwhelmed. To have them have direct communication with, uh, PHAC for those documents is a burden on the hospital system. So that was one issue I found, was that there were major delays just in getting the medical records. In court, all you have to do is have an affidavit and you attach all your documents as exhibits, and you swear, you swear or affirm that affidavit, and it's before a judge. If it's good enough for a judge, it should be good enough for Public Health Agency of Canada. To make a determination. So that's one. The other issue was a lot of turnover in the case managers that really caused a lot of delays in the applications, a lot of confusion. But again, I think to their credit, I think PHAC has recognized this. The only question is whether they have boots on the ground to now deal with this, to, you know, to solve the problem.

Dean Allison · 3:53:26

Dale, thanks for coming. And when we originally talked, I thought You know, this, this is a mystery, this whole program. So I didn't realize— and I know we've had a couple of conversations— that it was actually like it was part of the contract that that amount of money would go to actual administration. So my question in terms of how much more knowledge you have of the new program versus the old— you sort of talked a bit, but is there still a lot of— we have no idea.

Jasmeet Grewal · 3:53:56

It's, they've put up some good information on the website about it. And I did obtain additional ATIPs through a third party. And I think, you know, BlackRock did report on it. But in terms of, you know, this is the rebranding. It's called the impact assessment.

Jasmeet Grewal · 3:54:11

Correct.

Daniel Freiheit · 3:54:12

Yeah.

Jasmeet Grewal · 3:54:14

And but so I think that the new program has a number of benefits. It doesn't, first of all, the time window. They're accepting new applications. They're looking at all the people who are, you know, administratively denied at the, at the VISB, at the original program. They're willing to look at those denials on, you know, and again, I think the, the budget, I think, is, is, uh, has not been, from what I've seen, there's been no limit in the budget.

Dean Allison · 3:54:38

Okay, so they're, they're going to open it up. There's no, it's not necessarily a cap now, you're saying that?

Jasmeet Grewal · 3:54:44

Correct. And so the other, the prior program had an annual salary income replacement cap of $100,000 per person per year. There's no cap to the new program from what I've seen. There was also a fixed amount for death benefit. There was a fixed amount for, for injury benefits. So those don't appear from what I've seen limited in the new program, which again is to PHAC's credit.

Dean Allison · 3:55:08

Okay, well, that sounds encouraging. I guess my other question would be then, although they may have seemed to open it up a bit more flexible, Do you— I— it's probably too early to tell whether people are still having a hard time filling out applications, getting them in, and in response time.

Jasmeet Grewal · 3:55:24

I mean, that's a typical complaint against government bureaucracy.

Shawn Buckley · 3:55:29

Every program, right?

Daniel Freiheit · 3:55:30

Sure.

Jasmeet Grewal · 3:55:30

I think there is a lot of redundancy that could probably be reduced with, you know, if people fill out forms online. But again, it's getting those documents in there from, you know, in a different format. Also ensuring that there are, that there is a medical review board in place. I haven't seen any evidence that there is actually medical practitioners or doctors as part of that, the new program. So that's a concern. I think AATIPs have been, you know, been sought about that to determine who those doctors are, if they've been established. But that needs to be confirmed because that's your bottleneck.

Dean Allison · 3:56:04

So we're not making recommendations to this inquiry, but if, you know, if you could, you know, recommend a few things that would make sense for the program.