New fee plan will help in patient care
A new fee structure has been introduced in B.C. to help doctors spend more face-to-face time with patients and less time on non-medical tasks their office staff can do.
For example, doctors’ offices will be reimbursed by the provincial Medical Services Plan (MSP) $7 each time they delegate to their medical office assistant a task like phoning or sending an email or text message to a patient to convey simple information such as a new test or that a prescription is required.
Dr. Shelley Ross, chair of the doctors with the B.C. General Practice Services Committee, said delegating more tasks to office assistants or nurses in medical offices is meant to free up doctors for purely medical work. The ultimate goal of the changes in fee structure is to streamline billing codes and improve patient access to general practitioners, also known as primary care or family doctors.
The new fee code changes should not result in higher billings to the MSP, to which doctors submit their billings, because some other fees are being eliminated, she said. But previously, some doctors may have had their medical office assistants already doing such work with the costs coming out of overhead expenses.
The fee code changes came into effect earlier this month. One change is that doctors will now be able to bill for mental health video conferences with patients. Another fee change is that doctors will now be paid $20 for phone calls with patients in which advice is dispensed instead of $15.
The changes are all explained on the General Practice Services Committee website.