Patients benefit from insight into doctors’ pay

Re Lifting the veil of secrecy on Ontario’s top-billing doctors, June 27

Kudos to the Star for the long and persevering quest to lift the veil of secrecy on billing practices by Ontario’s top-billing MDs. It is a credit to their investigative reporting to have finally cracked open this much-awaited key healthcare information. After a dogged five-year long quest, Ontario taxpayers now have the key facts, which they clearly have a right to know.

Out of the 194 doctors identified with annual billings from a high of $ 6.9 million to a low of $1.4 million, it was not a total surprise that ophthalmologists and radiologists were close to a half of the top billers. Over the years, while the ophthalmologists’ and radiologists’ streamlined procedures have significantly reduced time spent with patients, their billings have shot up.

It was good to see that the article provides readers with the necessary information in order to properly assess the fact that doctors’ takehome pay does take into account “the often hefty overhead costs physicians pay for expenses like equipment, staff salaries and rent.”

Better informed patients will now benefit from this publicly shared information about their health-care providers.

Rudy Fernandes, Mississauga

After the Star’s five-year quest, we now know the names and specialities of the 194 physicians out of 31,500 across Ontario whose annual OHIP billings placed them in the Top 100 at least once between 2011 and 2018.

So what? As noted, OHIP billing amounts give no insight into the net income of these physicians, or any other physician, since they do not take into account overhead costs, which the Ministry of Health does not track.

These 194 physicians are outliers and, if the ministry believes they are overbilling or involved in other abuses of the health system, they should investigate them and not taint the reputation of all physicians. The implication is that physicians, in general, are overcompensated and consequently an impediment to the improvement of our health system. I would suggest that if the Ontario government were paying my car mechanic or home renovator, they would be paying a lot more per hour than they are currently paying my physician.

Greg Sheehan, Mississauga