Bill 268: Making Women's Reproductive Healthcare Free Act

The businesses most directly affected are pharmacies, fertility clinics, gynecology and family medicine practices, and other healthcare providers operating in Nova Scotia. Day-to-day, this means providers of birth control, hormone replacement therapy, and IVF services will no longer be able to charge patients directly — instead, they must submit all claims to the MSI Plan for payment. Healthcare providers of any size, from solo practitioners to larger clinic networks, will need to update their billing systems and workflows to route these services through MSI rather than collecting patient co-pays or out-of-pocket fees. Fertility clinics in particular will need to align their referral, diagnostic, and treatment protocols with new regulatory requirements for the Publicly Funded IVF Program, and may see changes in patient volume as previously cost-prohibitive treatments become accessible.