Shandro releases details of sunshine list for doctors
Health minister sparred all summer with Alberta MDS on accountability
EDMONTON Albertans will soon find out how much the province pays doctors.
Health Minister Tyler Shandro has released details of the sunshine list he’s creating for doctors amid a months-long dispute with the Alberta Medical Association and has given officials 60 days to release the data from the last three fiscal years.
Starting in 2021, the information will be released within 90 days of March 31.
According to an order dated Sept. 9, the list must include all fees doctors have been paid for insured services. Shandro also has the option to include doctors’ names, locations, specialty, the number of patients they’ve seen and how many days they’ve worked.
Shandro threatened to create the list in July amid his ongoing battle with the province’s doctors. He tabled amendments to Bill 30, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, later that month that would allow for the list. The new order creates the required regulations.
Steve Buick, Shandro’s press secretary, said Alberta’s list will be “the most comprehensive disclosure of physician payments in Canada.”
“The website is in development, and will include comprehensive information, including not just payments, but also items such as the number of patients served,” Buick said in an email Thursday.
Contract negotiations between the province and doctors escalated in February when Shandro tore up the agreement and unilaterally decided to implement changes to the way doctors are paid, some of which have been rolled back.
Dr. Christine Molnar, president of the Alberta Medical Association, said Thursday that her organization believes the government can achieve transparency by using an anonymized identifier such as a billing number instead of naming doctors.
If doctors are named, she said there needs to be an exemption process for those who want to have their names removed for safety reasons.
“Certainly physicians that are in rural and remote communities or identifiable physicians in smaller communities may be exposed to unwanted attention that may or may not be dangerous,” she said.
She added she has received letters from physicians who do volunteer work in developing countries and fear their safety will be at risk.
Buick said the Health Statutes Amendment Act already allows for a doctor’s name to be excluded if the minister believes disclosure could unduly threaten their safety. The regulations allow for a temporary exclusion pending an application for exemption, he said.
Molnar said the list should include context. For example, doctors are responsible for paying for their staff, equipment and office space.
“The public needs to know the context, that this isn’t our takehome pay. It’s what our business revenues are and there’s a lot of things that go into the overhead payment including paying for Albertans to be employed,” she said.
NDP health critic David Shepherd said he worries the government is not creating the list in an effort to be more transparent but instead to gather ammunition.
“We will see how the minister chooses to communicate these numbers, if they simply choose to be disingenuous, and simply float them out there and say, ‘Look at all these doctors making these obscene amounts of money in their billings’ without mentioning that, of course, doctors operate as corporations,” he said Thursday.
The public needs to know the context, that this isn’t our take-home pay. It’s what our business revenues are.