Yesterday afternoon, in my capacity as Cardiac Program Medical Director at my hospital, I met with Mr. B, a 72 year old man whose wife died in hospital. I was expecting that he would want to talk about her hospital care; perhaps he wanted to explore why she died and if anything could have been …
The language of health care has had dramatic change – we now commonly use terms like patient centred care, quality outcomes, accountability, and so on in our description of a current or desired state for health care systems and the delivery of care. One discussion I do not hear frequently enough is a discussion of …
Decisions about health policy often involve difficult trade-offs. This is especially true when assessing new health technologies and medications, where funding one item can mean not being able to fund another. These decisions often force policy makers to go beyond scientific considerations of a drug’s effectiveness, and address broader ethical and social considerations. Recognizing that …
In the wake of the recent agreement between the Government of Ontario and the Ontario Medical Association, it is time to reevaluate the appropriateness of the OMA as the bargaining agent for Ontario physicians. I will spend most of this opinion piece using ophthalmology as an example since that is the specialty that I practice. …
The Ontario Medical Association and Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care have reached a tentative Physician Services Agreement. So what does this mean for doctors and patients, and the Ontario health care system? In contemplating this question, I thought I might impart a recent personal experience that provides some context to consider not only the …
An Assessment Of The New Agreement On Negotiation And Representation Rights As readers know, the OMA and Government have now, subject to OMA ratification, resolved their differences over fees and money, entering into a new two year Physician Services Agreement. I will leave to others the task of assessing whether the Agreement will truly result …
Last week, the Ontario Medical Association and the Ontario government announced they had reached a tentative agreement that they hope will end their current dispute. The tentative agreement, which will run until March of 2014, will affect doctors in a number of ways and also has implications for the wider health care system. In this article, …
As a recent ophthalmology and retina surgery graduate, I was shocked by the dramatic unilateral healthcare cuts announced in May. This left me with a poor first impression of the relationship between the health care profession and government. Although the OMA and government are back at the bargaining table, I am concerned that the best …
Vigorous patient advocacy over the past 25 years has pushed funding for breast cancer research in Canada to the top of the charts, outstripping the amounts devoted to research into other cancers. It’s a remarkable success story for a type of cancer that, just forty years ago, was spoken of only in hushed tones. But …
Recently I had a discussion with some physician colleagues about the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) campaign and specifically the principle of communicating non-neutral, political information to our patients. The campaign to which I am referring is that seeking to solicit the support of Ontario patients for physicians who are trying to get the government back …
The current negotiation process between the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) is deeply flawed. Currently, the negotiations focus primarily on physician pay and not on the best interests of the patients. The broader issue lies not in the details of which physician services received fee cuts and by how much, …
On June 12, 2012, the OMA announced its intention to launch a constitutional challenge to the Ontario Government’s decision to reduce physician fees for 37 procedures and services. No doubt the OMA’s decision to attempt to shift the locus of its dispute with the government from the bargaining table to the courts was motivated by …
Changes to the fee structure of Ontario’s Docs are stoking a fiery dispute between the Ontario government and physicians. But the current standoff takes the momentum out of physician-centred reforms with durable opportunities for cost savings in the health sector – such as having doctors commission care on behalf of their patients. Getting better value …
The fiscal health of the province should not be cured by detrimental changes to the health of Ontarians. The rhetoric of rising health care costs and a population aging ‘crisis’ are a means by government, health service providers, and even the consumer to obscure reality. The main crisis facing Ontario is a debt crisis. The …
The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and Ministry of Health and Long Term Care negotiate fee schedules on a four year basis. This year, the process has garnered a great deal of attention as negotiations broke down, and the Ministry of Health unilaterally imposed fee reductions in some areas. Understanding the history of bargaining between doctors …
I’d like to talk to you a little bit about fear. As many who visit this site are no doubt aware, the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and the provincial government are in the midst of a fee dispute. The government has decreed that the total physician services budget will be frozen. This means that physicians …
If I were a respirologist, I would receive many referrals from family doctors asking me to determine whether patients with shortness of breath have asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I would take a history from each patient and conduct a physical examination. Depending on the situation, I might occasionally order some blood tests or …
Starting July 1st, 2012, the Government plans to eliminate health care services to some refugee claimants and significantly reduce services to others. Refugee claimants will get basic health care in urgent/essential situations, i.e., if they are rushed to the hospital or if they have communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, which could pose a risk to Canadians. …
The public squabble between the Ontario Medical Association and the Ontario government about tweaking physician payments is to be expected: no one likes cuts to their income. But in this case the cuts are concentrated in a few sub-specialties, so the pain is concentrated, prompting a particularly loud response. So what’s it about? There’s an …
The Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) was established in 1957 to provide temporary coverage of medical costs for refugee claimants without financial means while they await qualification for provincial or territorial coverage. Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney recently introduced changes to the IFHP that have prompted outcry across the country from physicians and …