Increase in doctors raises health costs

More than 82,000 physicians billed a total of $25 billion across the country last year

A new report shows the number of physicians in Canada grew last year as did the overall cost of their services, which rose almost 4 per cent to $25 billion.

The report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) tallied the number of doctors across the country in 2015 at more than 82,000.

For the ninth year running, that number has increased at a faster rate than the population. There are now more doctors per person than ever — 228 for every 100,000 Canadians.

The average gross clinical payment for a physician remained virtually unchanged at $339,000. But this amount varied by type of specialty: family doctors were paid an average of $271,000; medical specialists $338,000 and surgical specialists $446,000.

CIHI says the average gross clinical payment per physician varied across the county — from $258,000 in Nova Scotia to $366,000 in Alberta.

Geoff Ballinger, CIHI manager of physician information, said it’s important to realize that, in most cases, the average payment estimates don’t include practice overhead costs such as staff salaries, office rent, medical equipment and supplies. Based on the number of MD degrees awarded by Canadian universities, the number of physicians is like- ly to continue expanding. In 2015, Canadian universities awarded 2,817 MD degrees, a slight increase from the previous year. Between 2011 and 2015, the number of MD degrees awarded in Canada increased by about 12 per cent.

“Understanding the supply, payments and activities of physicians across the country helps us to understand not only how many physicians there are and how much we pay for their services, but also how health-care resources are allocated,” Ballinger said in a release. Also from the report: There were regional differences in the changes to the number of doctors. Saskatchewan and Alberta each saw increases of about 5 per cent over the previous year, while there was a 2-per-cent decrease in Newfoundland and Labrador and a 3-percent decline in New Brunswick.

The number of physicians per capita has gone up in all provinces since 2011. Nova Scotia has the most physicians per 100,000 population (261), followed by Newfoundland and Labrador (243) and Quebec (242). Provinces with the fewest physicians per 100,000 were P.E.I. (181), Saskatchewan (196) and Manitoba (204).

The proportion of female doctors in Canada continues to rise. In 2015, almost 40 per cent were female, up from 36.5 per cent in 2011. By comparison, the number of male practitioners grew by 7.3 per cent.

Women accounted for a larger proportion of family medicine physicians (45 per cent) than specialists (35 per cent).