covered ← Back to start

Report

Before and after covered

Older adults in Ontario, and the family members who care for them, are entitled to more support than they receive. Not because they don't qualify, but because finding, understanding and applying for it is hard.

This report shows the gap as it stands, what the journey looks like with and without covered, and one worked example run through the live engine.

Figures are cited below. The worked example is computed by the same engine the app uses.

The gap today

Share of people who claim, out of everyone who could. Each bar has its own base, so read them separately.

View as table
ProgramWho it countsClaim it

Home care itself is slow to start, too: in the Auditor General's 2015 audit, 65% of initial home care assessments missed the required timeframe, some by a year or more.

The journey, before and after

The same person trying to set up care and claim what they're owed.

Today

Five scattered steps

  1. 1
    Hear about programs by chance
    A search, a friend, or a hospital social worker. No one tells you proactively.
  2. 2
    Call each office separately
    Home care, CRA, Service Canada, CILT. Each has its own rules and phone line.
  3. 3
    Dig up your income figures
    Every income-tested program asks for numbers few people remember.
  4. 4
    Fill long forms and repeat your story
    Different forms, the same details, again and again.
  5. 5
    Miss the links between programs
    The Disability Tax Credit unlocks the Canada Disability Benefit and the RDSP. That link is invisible.
With covered

Three steps in one place

  1. 1
    Answer a few questions, or upload
    Tap, type or speak. Upload a Notice of Assessment and we read your income for you.
  2. 2
    See everything you may qualify for
    In plain language, each with its official source, and the unlock chain spelled out.
  3. 3
    Get forms prepared and the next step named
    You confirm and submit. A caregiver can follow along with your consent.
Today: many offices, many forms, and the most valuable connection left for you to discover.
With covered: one place, one set of answers, and nothing filed without you.

A worked example: Margaret

A sample client run through the live engine, exactly as the app does it.

71 years oldOntario $28,500 net incomeReports a lasting impairment $3,500 medical costs$1,800 prescriptions
5programs she may qualify for

Three have a dollar value the engine can calculate (up to $3,538 a year); two provide coverage rather than cash.

View as table
ProgramStatusKindValue / year
Canadian Dental Care PlanEligible. Pays a share of the set fee for dental care; the cash value depends on the treatment.
Assistive Devices ProgramMay qualify. Funds about 75% of approved equipment such as mobility aids.
Read the tax credits carefully. The Disability Tax Credit and Medical Expense Tax Credit are non-refundable: they reduce tax owed. At Margaret's income she may owe little tax, so their value may come mainly from transferring the credit to a supporting family member. We show these as ceilings, not cash in hand.

Try her case yourself →

Why you can trust the after

Things you can check in the repository and the running app.

2
questions skipped by uploading a Notice of Assessment (income and province)
11 of 15
policy figures re-checked automatically against official government pages
130/130
program decisions match the hand-labelled regression cases
99
automated tests, including privacy and row-level security

The regression cases prove the engine is consistent, not that it matches reality; the policy check against official pages is what keeps the figures honest.

Try it

Every part of this report is a working flow.

Set up home careFind benefits How it plugs in

Sources

  1. Disability Tax Credit take-up under 40%: Dunn & Zwicker (2018); programs tied to the DTC under 50% (Canadian Tax Observatory, via CBC).
  2. RDSP: about 34% of eligible people have opened one (Statistics Canada 2024, via CBC); 36.3% in 2022 (Canadian Journal of Public Health).
  3. Canada Caregiver Credit: 43% of caregivers did not know it existed and 12% had ever claimed it (CIBC poll, 2018).
  4. Home care assessments: Auditor General of Ontario, 2015 annual report.
  5. Worked example: computed by the covered rules engine with the sample client; program rules and rates cite canada.ca and ontario.ca.

Full references and the research behind the use cases: GROUNDED-USE-CASES.md in the repository.