Ontario physician wage freeze: Help or hindrance?

NEWS RELEASES

PROVINCE
OF ONTARIO

ONTARIO MEDICAL
ASSOCIATION

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Statement from Ontario's health minister

Today, Deb Matthews, minister of health and long-term care, released the following statement:

In the coming months, the Government of Ontario will announce additional investments and actions to preserve and expand services vital to the health of Ontario's patients and people.

We are adding hundreds of new nurses to community and long-term care, expanding home care services, increasing support for mental health and addiction and increasing access to telemedicine in northern and rural communities.

We are able to make these improvements to care even in the face of challenging economic times because we have made the right choices.

One such choice is to place a real freeze on the amount we pay our doctors.

The Ontario Medical Association continues to resist a real wage freeze and is looking for ways - both direct and indirect - to boost doctors' pay.

Here are some facts they will not share with Ontarians facing pay freezes and making sacrifices of their own:

• According to the latest figures, Ontario's doctors earn, on average, $385,000 per year  and are the best paid in the country.
• Many specialists now earn twice that amount or more.
• Since 2003, doctors' pay has increased by an average of $164,000.
• During the same period, 3,400 more doctors have launched practices.

The bottom line is that Ontario is the best place in Canada to practice medicine.

A real wage freeze that helps us support more nurses, more home care and more mental health services will not change that fact.

The OMA wants you to believe that either they get another increase, or doctors will leave Ontario. 

That's a false choice. 

The real choice facing our health care system is, will doctors accept a real wage freeze, or should we make do with fewer health care services like home care? 

I've made my choice. 

It's up to the OMA to explain why we should be increasing physician salaries at the expense of other frontline services.

I continue to encourage the OMA to return to the table with our government so that we can reach an agreement that puts the interests of patients first.

Quick facts

• Today, 2.1 million more Ontarians have a family doctor as compared to 2003.
• Ontario has added 13 percent more family doctors and 18 percent more specialists since 2003.
• Family physicians earned $351,237 on average in 2011/12.
• Diagnostic radiologists earned $668,819 on average in 2011/12.
• Ophthalmologists earned $666,477 on average in 2011/12.
• Cardiologists earned $585,348 on average in 2011/12.
• Vascular surgeons earned $600,797 on average in 2011/12.
• Nephrologists earned $634,898 on average in 2011/12.

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Over 900,000 patients still don't have a family physician: Ontario's doctors

Ontario still facing a shortage of over 1,000 doctors

TORONTO - New figures from the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) reveal that over 927,000 patients in Ontario, including 132,000 children, still do not have a family doctor, and the province is short more than 1,000 doctors.

Speaking outside an emergency department in Toronto, Dr. Stewart Kennedy, president of the OMA, raised concerns about the impact of the government's plan to unilaterally impose fee cuts on physicians and the effect these will have on the province's ability to recruit and retain physicians.

The OMA believes that if the government's scheme is implemented, more patients will be unable to find a family doctor and will end up in emergency rooms unnecessarily.

Dr. Kennedy pointed to a recent report, Primary Care in Ontario: Reforms, Investments and Achievements, which illustrates that having access to a family doctor decreases the number of emergency room visits for minor conditions. 

For example, the number of semi-urgent and non-urgent visits to the ER dropped by over 12 percent between 2007 and 2010 for patients enrolled with a primary care physician (Figure 1). 

This finding is consistent with a recent report from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), which noted that not having access to a family doctor resulted in more than 118,000 excess emergency room visits annually, and more than 17,000 excess hospital admissions.

Today's announcement comes just days after the government rejected an offer by the OMA to continue contract negotiations with the assistance of a Conciliator.

The negotiations reached an impasse after the government rejected a proposal by the OMA to freeze physician fees for two years, and find an additional $250 million in savings in health care, on top of the $300 million already identified.

Quotes

"We've clearly made some progress at keeping patients out of the emergency room.  But it's disappointing that the government is prepared to throw it all away by cutting over $1 billion in programs and fees. Ontario needs more doctors, not less. Fee cuts and unilateral action will hurt the province's ability to recruit and retain physicians."

"We know that one of the ways the health care system can save money is by ensuring patients have a family doctor which will keep them out of the emergency room in the first place." - Stewart Kennedy, MD, president Ontario Medical Association

Backgrounder

Progress to improve health care in the last 8 years:

• 2.1 million more patients now have a doctor, who didn't in 2003.
• 40 percent more doctors are working evenings and weekends.
• Wait times in Ontario are some of the lowest in the country.
• 8 million patients now have an electronic medical record being managed by 8,500 doctors.

Competing with other jurisdictions for physicians:

• The U.S. is projecting a shortage of 90,000 doctors by 2015.
• The Canadian Institute for Health Information ranks Ontario's fee schedule as 7th in the country.
• Alberta doctors received a 5 percent increase to fees this year and next year.
• Manitoba doctors will receive over 10 percent over the next three years.
• Saskatchewan doctors will receive approximately a 4 percent increase this coming year.

Details of the OMA's offer to government that was rejected:

• 0 percent increase on fees for two years, effective April 1, 2012.
• $250 million in direct savings to the OHIP budget over the next two years, or the equivalent of a 2.5 percent discount to every doctor in Ontario.
• A renewed process to find additional, evidence-based savings that do not negatively impact patient care, which previously has helped identify more than $300 million in savings.

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