Lifetime memberships were created more than 20 years ago, at a time when we could not have predicted the demands of the future. How we manage health data and communicate with our First Responder partners has changed dramatically since Lifetime memberships were created and our First Responder partners now require a lot more from us – much more than anyone could have foreseen.

MedicAlert does charge a fee to cover the costs of the service we provide. This service includes our emergency response centre, the staff that work there, the maintenance of our Subscriber Health Information Database, technological upgrades to our Database and other systems, to ensure security against cyber-attacks, and ongoing training for First Responder partners, and more. As a registered charity—one that does not receive government funding—the fees we charge for this offset the cost of our operations, but we do not make a profit.

If you’re on a Lifetime membership, we do charge a $15 fee for each update to your account. However, paid subscriptions include unlimited updates to your Personal Health Record. We encourage you to update your record as soon as a change occurs. Whether it’s a change to your medications, an update to a de-escalation protocol, or simply a change to your email or physical address, it’s important to keep your record up to date to ensure that First Responders have the most current information to work with. Our First Responder partners prefer that your record is updated every three months.

As a charity, we also gratefully accept donations from generous supporters. These donations go toward a number of outreach programs and research partnerships, all of which are in support of our mission to help protect people in their most vulnerable moments. For example, our Safe & Found research partnership with the School of Public Health at the University of Waterloo was made possible thanks to the generosity of donors. We are currently leveraging this research to develop a technology tool we call EarlyAlert, which will notify care partners when their loved one living with dementia is most likely to wander. It’s a tool that has the potential to save lives and it will be a game changer for care partners. For full transparency around MedicAlert’s charitable status and how we use the donations we receive, we invite you to review our T3010 which we are obligated to submit to the Canada Revenue Agency each year. You can view this document on the Canada Revenue Agency website. Our charitable registration number is 106863293 RR 0001.

Unfortunately, MedicAlert is not able to take a portion of your donation and put it toward the cost of an annual subscription. Charitable law prevents donors from deriving any benefit from their donation other than a tax receipt. Putting a portion of your donation towards your subscription would be in violation of this law. We hope you’ll consider remaining a donor to MedicAlert, and becoming a paid subscriber, as both subscriptions and donations are of equal importance. We of course understand if this decision would mean your donation would decrease to account for the cost of the annual subscription fee.

As a charity, we aim to keep our fees and prices as low as possible, but we understand cost can be a factor. IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity in Action) is our charitable assistance program designed to support individuals who may be adversely impacted by social determinants of health for a variety of reasons. The program works by waiving a portion or all of the cost of MedicAlert’s services to those in need, and it’s made possible thanks to the generous commitment of our donors. Learn more.