First Nations Health Benefits
and Services is pleased to announce updates to the Medical Transportation (MT)
Benefits Schedule. Incorporating community feedback generated through the First
Nations Health Authority (FNHA) MT Transformation
engagement series, travel for the following
will be considered regular MT benefits:
- Opioid agonist therapy (OAT)
- Withdrawal management (also referred to as detox)
- FNHA-funded treatment centres
Effective
July 4, 2022, MT requests for the above services will no longer require
an approved Exception under the MT Program.
Patient Travel (PT) Clerks
and Health Leads should refer to the PT Clerk User Guide for information on how to assess eligibility when coordinating
medical transportation for these services. Contact transportation@fnha.ca for a copy of the guide.
How do these updates
impact your Community?
This
change means that incoming client requests for medical travel for OAT,
withdrawal management and travel to FNHA-funded treatment centres can be
assessed and coordinated as regular MT benefits within the community’s medical
travel program.
These changes to the
benefit areas are consistent with the goal of the MT Transformation Project and
align with Directive 1 of the FNHA 7 Directives: to establish a community-driven and Nation-based approach to
health governance. The FNHA's MT Operations team will remain available to
support PT Clerks to determine the eligibility of these requests when required.
MT Transformation
Project
In March 2020, the FNHA launched a
multi-year initiative to assess, plan and implement improvements to the MT
Program. Check out the MT
Transformation Project for more information.