OLDS —Mayor Mike Muzychka says he and other members of council plan to express concerns about pay cuts for doctors when they meet with provincial ministers and MLAs over the next few weeks.
Councillors announced that plan after hearing an approximately 40-minute presentation on the cuts by two local doctors during council’s Feb. 24 meeting.
Muzychka said they would have an opportunity to begin making that case when he and other councillors headed to Edmonton Feb. 27 for the unveiling of the provincial government’s budget.
He noted other opportunities will arise later this spring when councillors attend spring meetings of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association and the Rural Municipalities of Alberta Association.
On Feb. 20, the provincial government announced it has formally ended its current funding arrangement with Alberta doctors and announced sweeping changes to the way it will pay doctors from now on. In general, those changes take effect April 1.
Negotiations between the Alberta Medical Association and the provincial government which began back in November, broke down Feb. 14 after mediation, which both sides said did not work.
It was pointed out that general compensation will remain at the current level of $5.4 billion a year.
Health Minister Tyler Shandro said the changes were necessary to avoid a projected $2 billion in cost overruns. The government has said Alberta doctors are among the highest paid in the country.
However, Dr. Johann van der Vyver, along with Dr. Murray Rodych of the Wild Rose Medical Centre, disputed that.
They said the provincial government has “cherry-picked” certain fees and certain provinces to make doctors’ salaries and payments appear more lucrative for physicians than they actually are.
They also pointed out that doctors have to make enough money to not only make a living for themselves, but also pay for their employees and cover overhead like heating, lights, computer costs, etc.
Representatives of the Parkside Medical Clinic also attended the council meeting but did not make a presentation, saying Rodych and van der Vyver had made the necessary points.
Van der Vyver described the master agreement and payment system as a mixture of socialism and capitalism, whereby doctors ran their offices like businesses but the government paid doctors via taxes they collected.
He said the government imposed the changes with “no consultation.”
Following are some of the changes the government is imposing.
Doctors had received $18 for each payment when visits required more time because patients had complicated issues. That will now be cut to $9.
However the government says that “complex modifier” will be reinstated, starting April 2021, for visits that last longer than 25 minutes.
The province says the change was needed because many doctors were “abusing” it, billing for complex visits once those visits lasted longer than 15 minutes.
The government will also cap the number of patients a doctor can see and bill for in one day to 65.
Shandro said family doctors in this province see an average of 22 patients a day. He said specialists usually see about 13 a day.
Also, patients older than 74 and a half years will now have to cover the cost themselves for exams to get or renew a driver’s licence. The provincial government says that’s in line with other provinces. Provincial officials note other Albertans have to pay that cost as well.
Van der Vyver said the government’s announcements over the past few months have had an alarming effect on the health and morale of many physicians.
“There is a colleague of ours that worked in Olds. He is not from Olds, but he came and helped us – that went through suicide a week ago; that committed,” he said.
“Physician stress or – that is basically what you call it – emotional, mental stress, is a huge thing. It’s all over Alberta Health, over their website.
“But if you add this – what I am talking and what we are talking about tonight – I don’t even want to say it’s going to impact people to the point which I’m mentioning, which I have just mentioned now, but you can imagine what it does to people’s lives and livelihood.”
Council was told that Olds, being the size it is, will likely weather the storm somehow, but it was said that smaller communities might suffer more.
They said it’s conceivable that some physicians may opt to move to other provinces or elsewhere in the world.
“We’ve always done our part to hold up our side of the bargain and without this master agreement in place, we have no say whatsoever.
“Essentially now, without a contract, the government can tell us how and when and where to work,” Rodych said.
“And I don’t think that’s a good situation for anybody under any profession to be in, and I don’t think that’s a good position for our province to be in in terms of future attraction and retention of good Canadian-trained physicians.”
Rodych said Wild Rose Medical Centre officials plan to meet shortly to figure out how best to deal with the changes, because doctors and staff in the clinic still want to deliver the best care they can for their patients, despite the UCP government’s decision.
Muzychka was asked if he believes lobbying by Olds councillors will have much effect, given the fact the provincial government seems to be determined to save money on doctors’ salaries and payments.
“We have seen them reverse course on a couple of things, so I’m hoping that maybe this will be one that they take a look at again,” he said.
