Low Cost Alternative Drug Categories

This file contains historical price information for drugs that are, or were, partial benefits under the Low Cost Alternative (LCA) Program.

It does not include drugs that were designated as full benefits under the LCA Program.

For partial benefit LCA drugs that are, or were, also included in the Reference Drug Program, data is provided on the RDP category, unit measure for RDP pricing for the drug and the RDP price.

Variable Descriptions

VARIABLE	DESCRIPTION
CDIC	Canadian Drug Identification Number
EFF_DATE	Effective date of the drug price
LCA_PRICE	Highest per unit price that PharmaCare pays/paid for this drug.
FULLBEN	File contains only partial benefits (indicated by “P”)
BONLY	“B” indicates coverage is available only for Plan B patients
RBPCAT	Reference Drug Program category
SUBCAT	Reference Drug Program sub category
UNITDAY	Unit measure used for RDP pricing (D=daily, U=unit)
RBPPRICE	Reference drug price
EXCLPLAN	PharmaCare plan(s) under which the drug is not a benefit
CNCL_DT	Cancellation date of price

File Layout

VARIABLE
DATA
TYPE
POSITIONS

CDIC CHAR 1 - 8

EFF_DATE CHAR 9 - 16

LCA_PRICE CHAR 17 - 23

BLANK CHAR 24

FULL_BEN CHAR 25 - 27

PLANB CHAR 28

RBPCAT CHAR 29 - 32

SUBCAT CHAR 33 - 36

UNITDAY CHAR 37

RBPPRICE CHAR 38 - 44

EXCLPLAN CHAR 45 - 104

CNCL_DT CHAR 105 - 112