Free insurance?

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 52, No. 10, December 2010, Page 530 News

Well… almost. Did you know the Phy­sicians’ Disability Insurance (PDI) program that is administered by the BCMA is 100% paid for by the pro­vincial government? And that it’s available to all nonsalaried physicians who are under age 65, receive fee-for-service, sessional, or nonsalaried service contract income? It’s true. British Columbia is the only province in Canada that has such a program.

What’s the catch? Well, there are two of them. The first is that you must apply for this coverage—it’s not automatic. Proof of good health at the time of application is required by the insurance company. The second is that the premium paid on your behalf by the provincial government is considered a taxable benefit by Canada Revenue Agency. 

This means the T4A that the BCMA issues to you for the premium must be included in your personal tax return as income. Using our 2009 rec­ords, a GP insured under the PDI program with a disability benefit amount of $6100 would have received a T4A in the amount of $2541. Using the highest tax bracket in BC of 43.7%, this GP would have paid $1110 in tax for a monthly disability benefit of $6100.

Benefits in this program begin after 14 days of total or partial disa­bility (or from the first day of hospitalization) and the benefit amount is determined using your prior calendar-year earnings. Want to learn more? Contact our insurance administrators for more information: 

Lorie Lynch: 604 638-2882
1 800 665-2262, extension 2882
llynch@bcma.bc.ca

Karen Paul: 604 638-2836
1 800 665-2262, extension 2836
kpaul@bcma.bc.ca

—Lori Moffat
BCMA Insurance Manager

. Free insurance?. BCMJ, Vol. 52, No. 10, December, 2010, Page(s) 530 - News.


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

Leave a Reply