Alberta Blue Cross and medical equipment rental in Calgary

Which Alberta Blue Cross plan do you have?

People say “I have Blue Cross” and mean three quite different things. An individual plan is one you or your spouse bought directly, perhaps after leaving a job or retiring. A group plan comes through an employer, and the employer chooses what it includes. Coverage for Seniors is a Government of Alberta program that Alberta Blue Cross administers on the government’s behalf.

The difference matters because the benefit lists do not line up. A hospital bed that appears in one booklet can be missing from another, and two employer plans carrying the same logo on the card can treat equipment very differently.

Individual plans: what the benefit lists show

Alberta Blue Cross lists hospital beds among the benefits of its individual Blue Choice plan, with a lifetime limit, and wheelchairs on a three-year cycle. Smaller medical aids such as crutches, canes, walkers, cervical collars and splints appear on a yearly basis. The brochure for the Blue Assured individual plan also names hospital beds and wheelchairs.

What a benefit list does not settle is the question most families actually have: does renting a bed for a few months count, or is the benefit written with a purchase in mind? Dollar maximums also change from one plan version to the next, so read the current brochure for your plan instead of an old copy from the filing cabinet. When you call, these are the questions worth asking word for word:

• Is the hospital bed benefit paid on a rental, a purchase, or either one?
• If rental is eligible, is it paid month by month, and up to what total?
• Would claiming a rental now use up a benefit that is limited per lifetime?
• Is an alternating pressure mattress part of the bed benefit, or a separate item?
• Are power lift chairs or battery-powered patient lifts eligible under my plan at all?

Coverage for Seniors and medical equipment

Coverage for Seniors helps with prescription drugs, diabetes supplies, ambulance services, psychological services, home nursing and chiropractic care. Medical equipment is not on that list of benefits.

If Coverage for Seniors is your only plan, don’t count on it for a hospital bed or lift rental without calling Alberta Blue Cross first. For an older adult with a long-term or palliative need, the program to ask the care team about is Alberta Aids to Daily Living, which starts with an assessment by a registered nurse, occupational therapist or physiotherapist. For a short recovery at home, the rental is usually paid privately or claimed through another benefits plan.

Group plans administered by Alberta Blue Cross

When your benefits come through work and the card says Alberta Blue Cross, your employer or plan sponsor decided which extended health items are included. The booklet from your employer, or the member website, is the source to trust. A neighbour’s experience with their own group plan tells you very little about yours.

If equipment is listed, look for the words “rental” or “purchase”, any mention of a physician’s prescription, and any line about getting approval before an expense. Then confirm by phone, and write down the date, the name of the person you spoke with and exactly what they said about renting.

Prescriptions, pre-approval and receipts

Ask what paperwork your own plan wants for a rental, item by item. Many plans ask for a physician’s prescription and itemized receipts, and some want a request reviewed before the expense happens. If pre-approval is required, find out how long a response takes, because a hospital discharge date may arrive first.

On our side, each monthly receipt is itemized: it names the equipment and the rental period it covers. If Alberta Blue Cross wants a quote before approving anything, we can prepare one showing the item and the monthly rate.

If the answer is no, or only partly yes

Sometimes a plan pays toward a purchase but not a rental, or covers the bed but not the pressure mattress. The deciding factor is usually how long the equipment will be needed. A few weeks after hospital discharge is a different calculation from many months of palliative care at home.

Renting still brings practical things that have nothing to do with insurance: delivery, setup in the right room, a walkthrough of the controls for whoever is caring, and collection when the equipment is no longer needed. Our monthly rates are published on the pricing page, so you can set the private cost beside whatever your plan offers.