42% of doctors polled planning exit
Government’s funding changes sparking exodus, survey finds
Over 40 per cent of Alberta’s doctors are considering a move out of the province because of recent provincial changes to their funding formula, an Alberta Medical Association (AMA) survey has found.
The AMA survey released Friday morning shows 42 per cent of the doctors in the province are considering a move or have made plans to work elsewhere because of changes in funding made by Health Minister Tyler Shandro.
The survey notes 87 per cent of Alberta physicians will be making changes to their practice as a result of the new framework.
“There’s a big difference between doctors thinking about leaving and doctors actually leaving but what it does say is how distressed physicians are in the province and how unhappy they are,” said Dr. Christine Molnar, president of the AMA.
“To even be thinking about those things is a statement. It is really a much higher number than I ever imagined.”
After contract negotiations between the government and AMA fell through in February, Shandro unilaterally implemented his latest offer to doctors.
Changes included cutting what doctors could bill the government for patient visits over 15 minutes, removing overhead costs from billing outside a physician’s clinic, and capping the number of patients a doctor could bill for in a day at 65.
Many of those changes were rolled back during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, however, Premier Jason Kenney said in May that once the pandemic is over doctors’ pay will need to be addressed.
The AMA stated that in the months since negotiations broke down, the relationship between doctors and the government have reached “historic lows.” The survey found 34 per cent of respondents said they may retire early or leave the profession all together and 48 per cent are looking at changing the way they offer services.
Other responses showed 43 per cent are considering a reduction in their hours and 34 per cent may lay off staff.
A letter sent to AMA members shows that 91 per cent of doctors have seen their average daily billings decrease over the past few months while 76 per cent said they are seeing less patients. Over half of respondents reported they have reduced their staffing numbers.
Eighty per cent of doctors attributed their losses to a combination of the ongoing pandemic and the changes to the funding framework, while 16 believe they are related to COVID-19 alone. Four per cent believe it is solely a result of recent funding changes.
“I think that these numbers reflect how hostile and toxic the environment is becoming,” said Molnar. “Physicians are very unhappy, many of their practices are not viable and on top of that they feel devalued in spite of all the efforts that they’ve put forward to help others.”
The survey was completed by 1,470 physicians from across the province. The AMA stated the results of the survey are considered accurate within plus or minus 2.4 percentage points, meaning 19 out of 20 times the survey results would remain the same if every Alberta doctor had participated.
“The reason we did this survey was we knew our members were stressed and other practices are really stressed and we wanted to understand how deep that distress was and how widespread it was,” said Molnar.
Doctors in Sundre, Athabasca, Lac La Biche, Calgary and Fort Mcmurray have all publicly stated they intend to leave the province.
The cancelled negotiations led to the AMA suing the provincial government in an attempt to get them back to the negotiating table. In the suit, the association claimed the government had engaged in superficial negotiations before unilaterally imposing their own framework. They argued that infringed and denied the charter rights of the AMA and its members.
On Thursday the government announced it filed its statement of defence arguing that it had implemented the new formula only after engaging in good faith, meaningful negotiations and conversations.
The government said the AMA was not prepared for negotiations and did not table any proposals until well into the negotiation and Alberta Health responded to each proposal.
“Alberta’s negotiators worked hard and in good faith to arrive at an acceptable agreement that would still ensure that Alberta’s doctors would be the highest-paid physicians in all of Canada,” Shandro said in an emailed release.
The defence claim argues that once negotiations came to an impasse, the government used a clause that allowed for either party to end the agreement. A clause they say the AMA agreed to include and was aware the government could use.
The government has previously stated it is willing to consider proposals from the AMA as long as it keeps physician compensation below $5.4 billion.