Kid with autism

We have our PRs and were planning to move sometime next year. But life happened and my kid got diagnosed with Autism. Living in the US, it is relatively easy to get services and haven’t had an issue with insurance, wait times or availability.

Upon researching the state of autism services in Canada, it broke my heart. The services are not covered by public health insurance. Some provinces give a fixed amount to families until age 5 and it drops significantly after. Eg. BC gives ~22k to families till age 5 and then onwards 5k. The services could cost upwards of 50k per year. It was so saddening to read stories of families who had to wait years for getting a diagnosis.

There are still a few things unknown to me and I’ve come here for information

  1. Do you know if big tech companies provide coverage for autism services?
  2. We’re hesitant to move now as US seems to be much advanced in terms of availability. If we decide to cancel our PRs now, will it be a problem to re-apply in the future?
  3. Even if we move now and take the financial hit with a good portion of (potential) Canadian salaries going towards services, will renewing PR be a problem? I’m not sure how medical inadmissibility would play a role here.

Lastly, if any one has any information at all about autism services or special education services in general in Canada, please reach out. I’m all ears.

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I’m truly sorry to hear of your kid’s autism diagnosis. There was some previous discussion on Autism and permanent residency. It didn’t reach a conclusion and may not impact your case at all if you and your child are already permanent residents.

There’s also some previous discussion about healthcare in Canada but this too may not be relevant to your case as that talks about general ailments and routine check ups or visits. In your case you’ll likely have to deal with specialists and not GPs.

I looked up my companies Manulife group benefits and didn’t find any mention but I suspect that you could discuss this coverage with potential employers after the interview process and for this to be included in your offer. While I have no personal experience with this I suspect that at-least the bigger companies should be able to accommodate you.

As for medical inadmissibility, I think that’s going to be a non issue as long as all of your are PRs now and meet your residency obligation you are eligible to renew your PR as well as to apply for citizenship. Also as far as I know, medical inadmissibility isn’t as much an issue for direct dependents anyway i.e. spouse and children.

But realistically in your case I think the question is what your backup plan is going to be, i.e. in case of job loss would you rather move back to Canada or India from America and do you believe that your child will get better services/coverage in Canada than they would in India. In most of the template cases I always recommend my friends to move to Canada, get citizenship and then make up their mind on wether to stay or go back to America. However your case is not a template case and is very unique.

My $0.02 on the healthcare systems in general is that if you have good insurance through your employer then the American system is vastly superior than Canada. If you don’t have insurance then Canadian system provides better universal coverage. Put more crudely if you’re well off then the American system has no parallels.

Again I’m sorry that most likely I’ve not provided you with any helpful information here. I wish you the best of luck and trust that any decision that you make will be the right decision for you and your family.

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@panditji You’re spot on with my options and my thoughts are along the same lines. The timeliness of services is more important in the short term. Long term we’d like to move to Canada.

Thanks for looking into your company’s benefits and your thoughts on medical inadmissibility.

I think @panditji nicely summarized what I was thinking. One thing I would like to add is, see if you can find an insurance broker for medical insurance providers, they might have more information regarding this. I went through my employers’ insurance brochure (SunLife) but could not find anything useful for you. I hope you find the best possible option for your kid, good luck.