Private Health Services Plan (PHSP)

The PHSP is not an insurance program. It runs based on the Canada Revenue Agency's (CRA) guidelines for eligible medical expenses and allows you to use your farm to reimburse you tax free for your medical expenses, and then deduct 100% of that reimbursement from your business income at tax time.

The eligible expense requirements for the PHSP are much more flexible than those for insurance programs and can include items not covered at all by insurance, or only partially, so the plan can compliment any group or individual health and dental plan or be completely stand-alone.

The plan set-up differs depending on whether your farm is incorporated or not. If you are considered self employed the plan year will be based on the current calendar year (January 1) and your annual reimbursement limits for employees are based on CRA guidelines ($1,500 per adult and $750 per child under each employee, so for example, a couple with one child would have $3,750 each year).

For incorporated farms the PHSP effective date can be aligned either with the current calendar year or with the farm's fiscal year. All participants need to have an employee connection to the business (i.e. in the form of a T4) in order to be eligible for participation, but there is no minimum for the amount on income received.

The PHSP has a one-time set up fee of $250 plus GST for KAP Members which will open the PHSP in the registered name of the business, and add the first five employee participants. The only ongoing fee is the 10% administration fee added to each claim submitted. If you don't submit a claim into the PHSP, you don't pay into the PHSP.

For more information, please call the Member Benefits line at 1-866-527-0123, extension 1, or email kapbenefits@stratabenefits.ca.