MSP group plan changes
The Medical Services Plan (MSP) Premiums will be eliminated as of January 1, 2020 and replaced with an Employer Health Tax that came into effect earlier this year.
Effective January 1, 2020, Langara will no longer administer the MSP coverage for employees.
What does this mean?
- As of January 1, 2020 employees will be able to access and manage their own MSP accounts through MSP directly. (i.e. employees will be responsible for directly providing address and family structure updates to MSP.)
- Employees do not need to re-apply for MSP coverage and this does not impact any benefits coverage.
- Health Insurance BC (HIBC) will automatically put employees and any existing dependents on a self-administered MSP account when your Group Coverage ends (effective December 31st 2019).
- Your MSP accounts remains the same if you change employers after January 2020.
- Effectively, all BC residents as of 19 yrs of age, will have 1 MSP account regardless of any change in employers, as long as they remain a BC resident.
While the premiums will be eliminated, enrolment in MSP continues to remain mandatory for all BC residents as per the Medicare Protection Act.
New and returning BC residents will still be required to complete two steps for MSP enrolment:
- submit an MSP Application for Enrolment to Health Insurance BC (HIBC) and
- obtain a BC Services Card by visiting an Insurance Corporation of BC driver licensing office.
To assist in the transition, Langara will be submitting a group change request. If you have address and/or family structure updates, please let us know by November 15, 2019.
Before terminating the group plan and its administration, we want to ensure that all MSP records are current.
For more information, please read the End of Group Plan Coverage Notice or visit the Government of British Columbia website.
If you have any questions about this change, please contact Human Resources at Langara.
People and Culture team
