Canadian access and provincial variation posts 61–81

Worth stating the null on canadian access and provincial variation before we explain it: the observation may be nothing. That possibility deserves a sentence and usually does not get one.

My position on canadian access and provincial variation is current rather than settled. I have revised it once already and I expect to again, so treat it accordingly.

The public assessment documents published at approval are free, detailed and largely unread here.

I would want a second opinion before relying on that.

Post #60 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.

Where the canadian access and provincial variation discussion usually stalls is that nobody wants to say "I do not know" and everyone is willing to say "it varies". Those are the same sentence with different clothes on.

Appeals succeed more often than people expect when they answer the stated criterion point by point and include nothing else.

I read the earlier replies on canadian access and provincial variation twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.

Sensible. I would want the same detail before I acted on it either.

Worth separating two things that post #64 runs together.

A note on how canadian access and provincial variation gets discussed rather than on canadian access and provincial variation itself: the confident posts get the replies and the careful ones get ignored, and the careful ones have been right more often.

The arithmetic in post #66 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.

Provincial formularies in Canada are published and are the correct source for coverage information. Coverage for weight management is less common than for diabetes.

Caveat: everything above assumes the paperwork is what it says it is.

Answering the question post #68 raises rather than the one it answers.

On canadian access and provincial variation I would separate what is worth knowing from what is worth acting on. The first list is long and the second is short, and conflating them is how threads get heated.

The most useful contribution is the current published criterion with a link and an access date, rather than an account of what happened to somebody.

Bookmarking this. I will come back when I have something worth adding.

Post #71 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.

The question underneath canadian access and provincial variation is usually "how would I tell?" rather than "what is true?", and that one has a method attached to it.

Write down what you would expect to see under each hypothesis before you collect anything. If they predict the same observation, collecting it will not help.

Building on post #71 rather than restating it.

Small correction to my own earlier position on canadian access and provincial variation. I had the units the wrong way round, which changes the conclusion by an order of magnitude and therefore changes it entirely.