BONNYVILLE – The province’s decision to cancel changes to physicians’ pay for complex modifiers is a step in the right direction, but local doctors want to see all changes put on hold.
“For myself, as for our group as well, we certainly appreciate the health minister addressing the change and it’s something that can certainly help us in our patient care,” said Dr. Travis Webster, physician at the Bonnyville Medical Clinic.
However, with the complex modifiers being just one of the 11 proposed changes to physicians' pay, Webster noted there are bigger issues at hand.
“In some ways, it’s wasting energy to be dealing with items like this. They should just park all of them for a couple of months until we get through this and that we could have a more clearer opportunity for negotiations and discussions.”
On March 17, the provincial government announced the changes to physicians’ payments for complex modifiers, which was scheduled to come into effect March 31, won’t be going ahead as planned due concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
“The last thing we need is to add stress to our frontline workers, like our doctors, who are doing their best and don’t need that additional stress,” stated Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul MLA David Hanson.
He added, “The situation has changed pretty drastically in the last couple of weeks, and we have to take that into consideration. I think it’s a move in the right direction, and it’s taking the stress off of a lot of doctors and it’s a totally unprecedented situation in Alberta, around the world, and the country.”
According to the province, complex modifiers are incentives provided to doctors to spend more time with patients who have complex medical needs.
In a press release, Alberta’s Minister of Health Tyler Shandro said they want the sole focus for frontline workers to be on patient care.
“We’ve heard concerns that this change would result in what has been called ‘10-minute medicine.’ While we respectfully disagree with that characterization, we are nevertheless halting this change so that doctors can concentrate on the critical tasks at hand.”
Updating the complex modifiers was one of 11 changes put forward by the province to the funding model for doctors. Other amendments include removing physician overhead subsidies from all hospital-based services, capping the number of office visits to 65 (excluding rural locations), reducing the number of days physicians have to make claims to 90 from 180, and requiring patients 74.5 years and older to pay for driver’s license medical exams, among others.
On March 11, doctors from Bonnyville, Cold Lake, St. Paul, and Lac La Biche held a public meeting in Bonnyville to speak out against the changes. They outlined how what the province was proposing would negatively impact patient care, and doesn't take into account the uniqueness of rural practices.
While local physicians would like more clarity on the 10 changes not addressed by the province in their recent announcement, Webster noted the coronavirus takes precedent at the moment.
“We do feel that there are bigger issues that we can be addressing right now with the pandemic and public health emergency. While our frontline healthcare providers, physicians, nurses, and everyone is preparing for that, we would also appreciate if the government focuses its attention on those items as well,” he detailed.
Both Webster and Hanson are optimistic the province and the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) will be back at the table for negotiations in the future to discuss the topic at length.
“We hope it brings things back to the table, and that’s what we want to happen for our patients and care in our community,” Webster added. “We still are pushing and navigating for the appreciation and accommodation for rural practices, which are different.”
