Annex F

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Table F1
Prince Edward Island inter-provincial in-migrant processing, eligibility and arrival months and lag problems

Notes:

1. Since there is a 3-month waiting period for eligibility, the arrival month would be 3 months prior to eligibility month and the eligibility month is normally the month after the processing month (when health cards are issued) if one applies the month one arrives in P.E.I.

2. For the respective processing months of March and April 2007: 1) April and May 2007 should be the eligibility months given that requests are processed 2 to 3 weeks prior to the eligibility month; 2) January and February 2007 should be the arrival months given the 3-month waiting period, and 3) October and November 2006 should be the cut-off months for backdating the length of time spent in Prince Edward Island prior to enrolling.

For the April 2007 processing month, one data point with an eligibility month of November 2007 was transferred to November 2006 as was probably a keying error.

The idea of getting a better fit should we lag the data by 3 months (due to the 3-month waiting or eligibility period) can be tested using the micro-data from Prince Edward Island for the March and April 2007 processing periods. In speaking with a representative from Prince Edward Island Health, it was revealed that data are processed 2 to 3 weeks prior to the date that someone is eligible for health coverage. Therefore, the monthly data we receive reflects the processing of the application form and not necessarily the month of enrolment.

As well, normally, eligibility months go back for a maximum of 6 months prior to the processing month even if someone had been in the province prior to the 6 months from the processing periods (there are some exceptions though). This is why there are a large number of people eligible in October 2006 (for the processing month of March 2007) and November 2006 (for the April 2007 processing month).

Ideally, if everyone had applied 3 months before they are eligible then the month of eligibility would be one month after the processing month, (for example, for the April 2007 data, the eligibility month would be May 2007). In the case of an April 2007 processing month with an eligibility month of May 2007 then people would have arrived in February 2007.

This Annex shows that for the March 2007 processing month, 44% of the new residents was eligible in April 2007 and for the April processing month 39% were eligible in May 2007. Therefore those processed in March would have arrived in February 2007 and those processed in April 2007 would have arrived in January 2007. As well, for April, 8 people had an eligibility period of June 2007 so would have arrived in March 2007.

But this also means that for the March processing month, 56% of the people arrived prior to January 2007 and for April 2007, 66% arrived prior to February 2007. These people are not new residents as of March or April 2007 or arrived in January or February 2007 but that is how we have interpreted these data and that of other provinces.

It is safe to assume that if the eligibility month is after the processing month then the new residents had arrived at least 2 months prior to the processing month. For the eligibility months before the processing month it is difficult to say what is going on.¹⁸

¹⁸ . Anecdotally, there was a situation with an applicant for the April 2006 processing month. She had an eligibility month of November 2005. In checking her application, it was revealed that she came to Prince Edward Island as a student in 2002 from Nova Scotia. While a student, her home province covered her health care. She then had graduated in May 2004 and probably stayed in Prince Edward Island. She would then have had a 3 month waiting period before being eligible for Prince Edward Island health care coverage. Had she applied after she had graduated then she would have been covered in August 2004. She probably had actually applied in April 2006 so the system backdated her eligibility date to no sooner than November 2005 since it normally only goes back 6 months from the processing month. Therefore in looking at just the April 2006 printout, we would have considered her to have arrived in Prince Edward Island in February 2006 while she had actually migrated from Nova Scotia in 2002.