Alberta’s government says close to 400 specialist physicians have expressed interest in participating in the province’s new dual practice system.
The model is set to allow doctors to offer private services while also working in the public system, starting with elective surgeries like hip and knee replacements.
Legislation enabling the new system takes effect on Tuesday, but Surgical Services Minister Adriana LaGrange’s office said Monday the government still has to do a formal application process before any privately paid-for surgeries take place.
The government announced in June that it wanted to hear from physicians over the summer, and LaGrange’s office said nearly 400 expressions of interest were received and are now under review.
“This will help us gauge interest, understand what specialists are contemplating dual practice and prepare for the formal application process,” said Maddison McKee, a spokesperson for LaGrange.
“Applications will be reviewed to ensure eligibility criteria and government requirements are met, including public surgery hour requirements, monitoring and new reporting requirements.”
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta currently lists about 14,150 registered physicians in the province, with nearly 550 specializing in some form of surgery.
Orthopedic surgeons, who specialize in procedures like hip and knee replacements, account for 272 of the province’s registered physicians, according to the college’s website.
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McKee didn’t provide a date for when the application process will be complete, but said the province is on track to see the first dual practice surgeries take place later this fall.
The new model has been subject to plenty of criticism, including by the provincial and national doctors associations and the Opposition NDP.
Among their concerns are that the dual practice system amounts to two-tiered health care that benefits those who can afford to pay while draining resources from the public health system.
The government has repeatedly defended the move since it tabled the legislation in November, saying the current status quo isn’t serving Albertans well and the government wants to create more options. The province has also said it thinks the model will attract more doctors to Alberta.
Dr. Bolu Ogunyemi, the president of the Canadian Medical Association, said Monday that he knows physicians across the country are frustrated by not being able to influence changes in the health-care system, so he wasn’t surprised to hear nearly 400 are looking to try something else.
“If we talk about private delivery of care or delivery of care outside of hospital settings, certainly it is more efficient and physicians can have more more control,” he said in an interview.
“I surmise very strongly that those are factors that’s leaving physicians to (want to) have more autonomy in this way.”
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There have been calls for Ottawa to step in and say Alberta’s law violates national health-care rules, and federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel’s office said earlier this month that Michel was having “targeted discussions” with LaGrange about the new system to make sure the principles of public health care were being respected.
Premier Danielle Smith has said her government’s move doesn’t violate the Canada Health Act and that she expects Ottawa to respect the province’s jurisdiction over health care.
“Albertans who choose to pay privately for eligible elective surgery should be able to do so here at home, rather than travelling out of province as they have done for decades,” Smith said on social media earlier this month.
“In Alberta, we do things a little differently, and I firmly believe we can do both.”
Ogunyemi said he too wants to see Michel step in and enforce the act and have Alberta instead focus resources on recruiting and investing in the health-care workforce, infrastructure and technological innovation.
“We’re really happy to collaborate with them on those models that work within … the rules of medicare in a universal publicly funded health-care system.”
Sarah Hoffman, the NDP surgical services critic, said Monday that the government pushing ahead with its dual practice model despite the concerns means it “is more interested in privatization than strengthening public health care.”
“Albertans want shorter wait times and better access to care.
“The answer is investing in and expanding our public health-care system, not creating new opportunities for private profit.”
The rich always come first as usual.
What a lot of ridiculous rhetoric … face it, the current system is so broken it doesn’t work. I just had total hip replacement surgery in Calgary, coming from Saskatchewan, and feel great about it for two reasons … (1) because I can now rehab and avoid the 2 to 2 1/2 year wait in SK, and (2) I have opened up a slot for someone else in SK to have the surgery at home … whenever to list finally opens up.
Good!
👍
So now the already ‘stretched thin’ medical care will be stretched even thinner as these doctors practice in both private and public…cutting their patient time in half on either side of private and public….how do they propose to offer the same services working 2 jobs?
Oh my god, profit is evil!!!!! Why shouldnt doctors be compensated for all of the education and training that they go through and all of the sacrifices that they encounter.
What we have is not working, why not try something else that works in other countries?
This should be great. Doctors are limited on the amount they can bill in a month in the public system so…
1) Doctors will be more willing to stay in Alberta instead of moving to the USA to make more money
2) It will free up more appointment space for the public system since some people will use the private system resulting in shorter wait times
3) Increased doctors income means more tax income for the government
Win, win, win
Jake: The reason there is a backlog, is that although knee and hip surgeries are necessary surgeries under the Canada Health Act, and one would expect if health care is needed, it should be provided, Alberta Health puts a limit on the number of surgeries that it will fund. If it is caused by an accident, and is an emergency, then it is covered. If it is progressive, then there is a limit. So instead of following the Canada Health Act, Smith and UCP have decided to call them elective surgeries, so they think that they are not breaking the law.
Smith does not understand that we do not want a 2 tier system, like in the US. It does not work there. The rich get service, and the average Albertan is in a lineup. Why not fund things from the surplus, or reduce the Sheriffs to afford more doctors and treatments.
Only opportunists will.
Of course, they’re interested. Who wouldn’t be interested in making a LOT more money for relatively easy work (apparently, the doctors will do only routine, fairly simple surgery in the private tier, leaving the difficult and time-consuming surgeries for the public tier)?
If anything, that will make the lines longer in the public tier as most of the surgeries there will be more time-consuming and tiring for the surgeon, thus limiting how many surgeries they can do in the public tier.
The surgeons will have a required number of hours in the public tier. How many? As many as they are currently doing? If less, that will take away from the public tier, making the line even longer.
Will there be any limit on how many hours they spend in the private tier? If not, some surgeons may overtire themselves, especially if some procedures prove more difficult and time consuming than expected–and overtired surgeons can make mistakes.
And what’s this nonsense about “elective” surgeries? Elective surgeries are ones that are not covered by the Canada Health Act, like purely cosmetic plastic surgery. The surgeries these surgeons will be doing in the private sphere are surgeries that are supposed to be covered by the Canada Health Act.
So why were these docs not able to take more patients as is??
The media should look to see if this will increase the compensation for these Doctors as more money would make anyone look at a new system to provide healthcare.
Our present system treats patients like a commodity as they do a little then want you back or send you to another specialist and then make more appointments as that is how they get paid by having patients roll through the doors.
Instead they should do the work to keep patients away from the hospitals and clinics so the wait time would actually drop to reasonable times.
I had a family Doctor that took me off their patient list due to the fact I was not making any appointments with them so they took me off their list. Was told that by the nurse that called to notify me.