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home / 世界杯决赛2022

alberta government reverses course, lifts cap on daily physician billings

the reversal comes on an "interim basis," with plans to re-evaluate it in 2023, at the end of the province's current fiscal year

by madeline smith

nov 22 2022
read time 3 minute read
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health minister jason copping and dr. john cowell, left, the provincial health authority's new official administrator, announced steps in the alberta health services reform plan at the mcdougall centre in calgary on nov. 17, 2022. darren makowichuk / postmedia, file
the alberta government is rolling back a policy that forced doctors to limit the number of services they can bill for each day.
health minister jason copping and alberta medical association president dr. fredrykka rinaldi announced monday that after discussions following a new funding contract reached in september, the province will end a cap imposed in 2020 on daily physician billings for office visits, consultations and counselling.
the policy saw physicians get full compensation for up to 50 “visit service billings” each day, but just half the pay for billings past that, up to 65 services. doctors weren’t compensated at all for any services that went beyond 65 they already billed in a single day.
the reversal comes on an “interim basis,” with plans to re-evaluate it in 2023, at the end of the province’s current fiscal year.
visit service billings aren’t necessarily directly linked to the number of patients a doctor sees each day. physicians in specialties like family medicine, pediatrics and ophthalmology complained that multiple service billings can be required per patient, and a cap hampers the daily service they can provide.
some doctors said the cap prevented them from running evening clinics, which left more patients with few options but the emergency room after hours.
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rinaldi said from physicians’ perspective, the limitations “significantly interfered” with access and stability. removing it, she added, is a good step toward restoring trust between doctors and the government.
“when you ask physicians to open extra hours and they’ve already hit their cap during their daytime hours, we’re not florence nightingale, right?”
copping said the hope is that removing the cap will “address immediate pressures” on the health-care system and help albertans more readily access care.
“the impact of the cap was limited, and we think it’s outweighed by the need to support access for patients and let physicians use their judgment to ensure they’re seeing the appropriate number of patients in a day,” he said.
david shepherd, ndp opposition critic for health, and rakhi pancholi, mla for edmonton-whitemud, were joined on april 28, 2020, by families of medically fragile children to call on health minister tyler shandro to reverse his policies that will limit their access to specialized primary care.
david shepherd, ndp opposition critic for health, and rakhi pancholi, mla for edmonton-whitemud, were joined on april 28, 2020, by families of medically fragile children to call on health minister tyler shandro to reverse his policies that will limit their access to specialized primary care. dave degagne / dbphotographics.ca

cap was introduced after previous funding agreement scrapped

the cap took effect after the alberta government ripped up the previous agreement with doctors in early 2020, rolling out a series of changes that then-health minister tyler shandro said was aimed at controlling health-care costs.

at the time, an edmonton pediatrician who runs a clinic for kids with complex medical needs said at an opposition ndp-hosted news conference that the billing cap would force her to lay off staff and see fewer patients.

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on monday, ndp health critic david shepherd took aim at the ucp government again.
“the ucp should not be patting themselves on the back about today’s announcement,” he said.
“if lifting this cap allows more albertans to access a family doctor, then implementing it has denied albertans access over the last two years in the midst of a global pandemic.”
copping said the government will be monitoring billings in the coming months and looking at how many physicians exceed the previous limit. he said they expect to see an increase in billings, with a potential bump around $22 million per year.
the government’s deal with the ama sees a one per cent rate increase to physician compensation for 2022-2023, as well as a lump sum one per cent increase as a “recognition payment” for doctors’ work over the course of the covid-19 pandemic. that total payment adds up to about $45 million and will be distributed to doctors through the ama by the end of the year.
there are also still several outstanding issues the government is working with doctors to resolve in the wake of the new funding contract.
copping said monday that he intends to bring legislation during the legislature’s fall session to repeal a 2019 change that allowed the province to unilaterally end its master agreement with doctors — a condition of the ama backing down from a lawsuit seeking $255 million in damages.

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editor’s note: this article was edited from a previous version to clarify the estimated cost copping provided to lift the cap on daily visit service billings.
masmith@postmedia.com
@meksmith

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