what’s more, it’s illegal for an optometrist to charge the patient anything extra for an eye exam that’s “covered” by their health card.
this means that for any ohip-insured patient an optometrist sees, which is about 70 per cent of the average patient base, their office loses money each time, because it is subsidizing the cost to provide care to that patient.
the government is failing to cover the actual cost of service, and making it impossible for optometrists to make up the balance for those “ohip-covered” exams.
would you expect a restaurant to keep an item on the menu that costs more than it can charge to provide it? what if most of the people coming into the restaurant were there to order that specific dish? how long do you expect that item to stay on the menu?
without a mechanism to cover the cost to provide the service, there’s no feasible way to continue providing it. that’s where things have landed with optometrists in ontario.
come sept. 1, if the provincial government doesn’t make strides to fix this broken system, optometrists across ontario are prepared to take a stand — by withdrawing all ohip services.
it’s not a step optometrists will take lightly, as they want to continue providing a high level of care to all of their patients, regardless of their age or coverage. but if it’s not financially viable to keep doing that, access may start disappearing.