MSP coverage relating to COVID-19

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 62, No. 5, June 2020, Page 177 News COVID-19

Patients who are not eligible for coverage under MSP will be provided provincially insured health coverage for services relating to suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19. Services for unrelated conditions that are performed on MSP non-eligible patients will remain uninsured. Physicians and other health care providers are responsible for determining if a patient meets the criteria for coverage. Services related to COVID-19 for non-MSP eligible patients should be billed using the following Personal Health Number (PHN): 9703740703.

Providers may also notice an increase in patients presenting to them with confirmation of coverage letters. These letters have been issued in response to access to care during the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information on billing this general PHN, contact MSP: Vancouver: 604 456-6950, other areas of BC: (toll-free): 1 866 456-6950.

. MSP coverage relating to COVID-19. BCMJ, Vol. 62, No. 5, June, 2020, Page(s) 177 - News, COVID-19.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

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