“it’s a clear-cut case of bad faith bargaining,” said joshua smith, an alexandria optometrist who is past-president of the oao.
ohip pays for eye exams for people under 19 and older than 65, currently about $45 per exam. that’s barely $5 more than the fee in 1989 and only covers about 55 per cent of the true cost of about $80 per exam, smith said. in the “dear doctor” letter that elliott tweeted on aug. 23, the province offered to increase that by 8.5 per cent, but that would still leave optometrists “grossly underfunded,” smith said.
elliott also offered $39 million in one-time retroactive payments to cover the past decade.
that works out to about a dollar an exam, smith said. “it’s like tossing a bucket of water on a house fire.”
the optometrists have been trying to get a deal done since the ford government took power in 2018. after meeting last december, there had been nothing by “radio silence” until elliott’s tweet, smith said. in march, ontario’s 2,800 optometrists voted 96 per cent in favour of withdrawing ohip services on sept. 1. they’ve been warning patients ever since of the looming deadline and encouraging them to show support.
the withdrawal will affect only those whose exams are covered by ohip, meaning seniors, youth and others with medical conditions such as
diabetes that require regular eye exams. even if a patient wanted to pay for an eye exam on their own, the law prohibits optometrists from accepting money.