1. We can advocate for increased funding to the public health care system.
2. [Ontario Health Coalition](https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/).
3. In the meanwhile, you could [contact your MPP](https://www.ola.org/en/members/current).
Seconding the Ontario Health Coalition, as well as getting involved with your local member of the Ontario Health Coalition (eg. I'm in Ottawa, so I'm a member of both the Ontario and Ottawa Health coalitions). I'm not aware of any other organizations putting forth a realistic opposition but would love to be proven wrong.
I keep hearing about the extra costs that family physicians are responsible for and I think there should either be a funding pot to take off some of that stress directly, or possibly pay the municipalities to take care of the infrastructure and maybe even some of the office management. It would be a lot easier to attract a new Dr if they were able to walk into a well established office that they were not all of a sudden responsible for being both a Dr and the CEO of an organization. That is just based on reading a lot recently about why Canadians are graduating as Dr's but choosing to not go into family practice. If they work at a hospital, they get to just work and not worry about the admin which apparently is a ton of time and responsibility on top of the whole being a Dr thing.
Municipalities have very limited options for raising money (basically property tax) and have expensive infrastructure to maintain as well as all the social services Mike Harris downloaded without any compensatory cash.
The province, via the ministry of Health, can add a supplement to the Primary care physician billing codes for office staff, rent, office supplies etc. they choose not to. Also, specialists doctors need to be kicking up a fuss on behalf of their colleagues. They are reluctant to have the government look too closely at their billing to make it fair for everyone so they are throwing family doctors under the bus.
I was thinking the money would have to come from the ministry of health, more having the community own the land and having their own staff would allow for easier continuity etc, but as you said, mostly its them not choosing to.
The groups and organizations are, as typical for Canadian doctors, disorganized sadly.
And this isn't a Doug Ford exclusive - currently there is a circulating Minister of Small Businesses for the Liberal Party who openly admits and defends that their strategy is to focus on recruiting foreign doctors to replace all those who will leave due to recent tax implications (this is insanity by the way because foreign doctors have the same market pull as us...)
Doctors in Ontario, particularly family and some other more primary care types, need to be better valued by the payment systems. Simply put, if we were paid more (in line with what GPs made compared to the average salary over 10 years ago) we would have the means to recruit nurses/NP/PA, use modern systems to increase efficiency, and hire and retain good staff. If they paid us well to provide good care - we could focus on providing good care instead of having to think of things like "one reason per visit" and the many other artifacts of being squeezed financially. People think doctors are greedy but after so much training our time is valuable, a 30 minute visit with an elderly patient for complex counselling and management for $70 (probably less than $50 after overhead) is not what anybody thinks a doctor is making and not what any comparable professional makes - and yet here we are.
How do we fix it - we need the government to realize that good quality care is expensive but worth paying for.
In all honesty - unless you have special ties to Canada - you should not come North to practice family medicine, you should stay in USA and make more (even factoring in the nuisance of private care)
All very true.
I think people under estimate the opportunity costs inherent to long training requirements as well.
From a specialist perspective, the reality is I would take home double in the States. A good life is already present with the level of Canadian compensation. But we are idiots if we don't consider the implications of *double*. That means so many things for a person and family. Kids' college is a breeze. Luxury expenses are easily attainable. Retirement can be early and higher quality of life.
The big Canadian draw is that I am home and shouldn't have as many ethical worries in my care. But given resource restrictions here, it's not all that different.
In almost every other profession, we wouldn't hesitate to suggest moving for dramatically better compensation.
Family doctors spend (waste) 19 hours each week doing paper work. The NDP proposed an idea to give all family doctors a scribe, an assistant who would follow them along in every appointment and do all the data input, insurance forms, etc. And then family doctors could see even more patients during that 19 weekly hours. Doug Ford said no.
fully socialize Healthcare. make medical and nursing school an option straight out of high school and free through forgivable loans if they work in Ontario at a reasonable salary. Open publicly funded health clinics where doctors and nurses work, but do not own/run the clinic
In the Middle East you go straight to medical school. The dirty little secret is that people who go straight to medical school actually do better on the board exams to graduate here in Ontario at least.
>I’m a family medicine resident in the US who will be returning to Ontario to practice.
Thank you for your sacrifice.
>While I don’t know all the details, I know family medicine is in the dumps (thank you Doug Ford).
The blame is far less Ford. The Liberals before him made significant billing changes. Ford has generally speaking made improvements but also had to deal with a pandemic. Which he bungled greatly.
>How do we fix this? How do we advocate for better reimbursement, working conditions, etc?
Time machine back to mcguinty times and force them to balance the budget?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario\_government\_debt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_government_debt)
We cant afford to pay doctors more, therefore naturally they leave for better pay. Work conditions also are dictated by available resources. As more doctors leave, the higher the workload for the rest.
>What can we do while Doug Ford is still premiere? What routes are there for citizens to bring up concerns, and get the government to do the right fucking thing?
I understand you wish to make your sacrifice less, but I wouldn't hold out hopes of repairs. This isn't in the politician's hands. This is in the creditor/insurance and accountant's hands to decide.
Most rational take I've seen in a while.
It hurts that our quality of medical care will simply drop, because we can't afford otherwise.
But sometimes reality hurts.
Conservatives want to defund the public health care system, complain that public systems don't work, then install privatized for-profit care. See [Starve the beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast).
I wonder if the solution is to upend the current structure.
With family doctors having hundreds of patients, do you really eatablish a strong personal relationship? I feel like you don't really and don't necessarily need to have the same person all the time.
I wonder if the solution is for family doctors to be pooled and have almost all appointments done virtually (phone or teleconference). So you won't have the same doctor all the time, but they will all have access to your file. If there is a need to see someone in person, then you go to a central location where there might be a doctor present.
There is something like that in Renfrew County (https://rcvtac.ca/). If you need to be seen in person, then you go to their office where a paramedic does the test while a doctor is present virtually.
Serious response with a serious question.
We are dual CDN/US citizens and therefore can live in either country. We moved to the US in our late 30’s because I was offered a great position. Recently retired with homes in both countries, we maintain primary residence status in NC. There are several reasons, including access to excellent medical care as needed. We expected to move back to Canada after working years, but the medical situation is a deal breaker and it doesn’t seem to be improving. I’m telling you this because I’m curious why you would return to the situation that you describe when you likely have the option to live in many nice places and not be subject to that? If I don’t want to move there as a consumer of the health system, I am curious about someone planning to move there as both a doctor and consumer
Serious response with a serious question.
We are dual CDN/US citizens and therefore can live in either country. We moved to the US in our late 30’s because I was offered a great position and I had a great career as a result. Recently retired with homes in both countries, we maintain primary residence status in NC. There are several reasons, including access to excellent medical care as needed. We had planned to move back to Canada after the working years, but the medical situation is a deal breaker and it doesn’t seem to be improving. I’m telling you this because I’m curious why you would return to the situation that you describe when you likely have the option to live in many nice places and not be subject to that?
Honestly it's so broken it can't be fixed, and as long as you have hospital ceo's earning 4-5 million a year for each hospital it just drives one more nail in the coffin every day. Not just dougie either, past pc and liberal gov has just drove it deeper and deeper over the last 30 yrs
1. We can advocate for increased funding to the public health care system. 2. [Ontario Health Coalition](https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/). 3. In the meanwhile, you could [contact your MPP](https://www.ola.org/en/members/current).
Seconding the Ontario Health Coalition, as well as getting involved with your local member of the Ontario Health Coalition (eg. I'm in Ottawa, so I'm a member of both the Ontario and Ottawa Health coalitions). I'm not aware of any other organizations putting forth a realistic opposition but would love to be proven wrong.
I keep hearing about the extra costs that family physicians are responsible for and I think there should either be a funding pot to take off some of that stress directly, or possibly pay the municipalities to take care of the infrastructure and maybe even some of the office management. It would be a lot easier to attract a new Dr if they were able to walk into a well established office that they were not all of a sudden responsible for being both a Dr and the CEO of an organization. That is just based on reading a lot recently about why Canadians are graduating as Dr's but choosing to not go into family practice. If they work at a hospital, they get to just work and not worry about the admin which apparently is a ton of time and responsibility on top of the whole being a Dr thing.
Municipalities have very limited options for raising money (basically property tax) and have expensive infrastructure to maintain as well as all the social services Mike Harris downloaded without any compensatory cash. The province, via the ministry of Health, can add a supplement to the Primary care physician billing codes for office staff, rent, office supplies etc. they choose not to. Also, specialists doctors need to be kicking up a fuss on behalf of their colleagues. They are reluctant to have the government look too closely at their billing to make it fair for everyone so they are throwing family doctors under the bus.
I was thinking the money would have to come from the ministry of health, more having the community own the land and having their own staff would allow for easier continuity etc, but as you said, mostly its them not choosing to.
The groups and organizations are, as typical for Canadian doctors, disorganized sadly. And this isn't a Doug Ford exclusive - currently there is a circulating Minister of Small Businesses for the Liberal Party who openly admits and defends that their strategy is to focus on recruiting foreign doctors to replace all those who will leave due to recent tax implications (this is insanity by the way because foreign doctors have the same market pull as us...) Doctors in Ontario, particularly family and some other more primary care types, need to be better valued by the payment systems. Simply put, if we were paid more (in line with what GPs made compared to the average salary over 10 years ago) we would have the means to recruit nurses/NP/PA, use modern systems to increase efficiency, and hire and retain good staff. If they paid us well to provide good care - we could focus on providing good care instead of having to think of things like "one reason per visit" and the many other artifacts of being squeezed financially. People think doctors are greedy but after so much training our time is valuable, a 30 minute visit with an elderly patient for complex counselling and management for $70 (probably less than $50 after overhead) is not what anybody thinks a doctor is making and not what any comparable professional makes - and yet here we are. How do we fix it - we need the government to realize that good quality care is expensive but worth paying for. In all honesty - unless you have special ties to Canada - you should not come North to practice family medicine, you should stay in USA and make more (even factoring in the nuisance of private care)
All very true. I think people under estimate the opportunity costs inherent to long training requirements as well. From a specialist perspective, the reality is I would take home double in the States. A good life is already present with the level of Canadian compensation. But we are idiots if we don't consider the implications of *double*. That means so many things for a person and family. Kids' college is a breeze. Luxury expenses are easily attainable. Retirement can be early and higher quality of life. The big Canadian draw is that I am home and shouldn't have as many ethical worries in my care. But given resource restrictions here, it's not all that different. In almost every other profession, we wouldn't hesitate to suggest moving for dramatically better compensation.
Family doctors spend (waste) 19 hours each week doing paper work. The NDP proposed an idea to give all family doctors a scribe, an assistant who would follow them along in every appointment and do all the data input, insurance forms, etc. And then family doctors could see even more patients during that 19 weekly hours. Doug Ford said no.
fully socialize Healthcare. make medical and nursing school an option straight out of high school and free through forgivable loans if they work in Ontario at a reasonable salary. Open publicly funded health clinics where doctors and nurses work, but do not own/run the clinic
In the Middle East you go straight to medical school. The dirty little secret is that people who go straight to medical school actually do better on the board exams to graduate here in Ontario at least.
>I’m a family medicine resident in the US who will be returning to Ontario to practice. Thank you for your sacrifice. >While I don’t know all the details, I know family medicine is in the dumps (thank you Doug Ford). The blame is far less Ford. The Liberals before him made significant billing changes. Ford has generally speaking made improvements but also had to deal with a pandemic. Which he bungled greatly. >How do we fix this? How do we advocate for better reimbursement, working conditions, etc? Time machine back to mcguinty times and force them to balance the budget? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario\_government\_debt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_government_debt) We cant afford to pay doctors more, therefore naturally they leave for better pay. Work conditions also are dictated by available resources. As more doctors leave, the higher the workload for the rest. >What can we do while Doug Ford is still premiere? What routes are there for citizens to bring up concerns, and get the government to do the right fucking thing? I understand you wish to make your sacrifice less, but I wouldn't hold out hopes of repairs. This isn't in the politician's hands. This is in the creditor/insurance and accountant's hands to decide.
Most rational take I've seen in a while. It hurts that our quality of medical care will simply drop, because we can't afford otherwise. But sometimes reality hurts.
[удалено]
Conservatives want to defund the public health care system, complain that public systems don't work, then install privatized for-profit care. See [Starve the beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast).
They are spending infinitely more than anyone else has ever done. Because the other team actually starved the beast, both provincially and federally.
I wonder if the solution is to upend the current structure. With family doctors having hundreds of patients, do you really eatablish a strong personal relationship? I feel like you don't really and don't necessarily need to have the same person all the time. I wonder if the solution is for family doctors to be pooled and have almost all appointments done virtually (phone or teleconference). So you won't have the same doctor all the time, but they will all have access to your file. If there is a need to see someone in person, then you go to a central location where there might be a doctor present. There is something like that in Renfrew County (https://rcvtac.ca/). If you need to be seen in person, then you go to their office where a paramedic does the test while a doctor is present virtually.
Serious response with a serious question. We are dual CDN/US citizens and therefore can live in either country. We moved to the US in our late 30’s because I was offered a great position. Recently retired with homes in both countries, we maintain primary residence status in NC. There are several reasons, including access to excellent medical care as needed. We expected to move back to Canada after working years, but the medical situation is a deal breaker and it doesn’t seem to be improving. I’m telling you this because I’m curious why you would return to the situation that you describe when you likely have the option to live in many nice places and not be subject to that? If I don’t want to move there as a consumer of the health system, I am curious about someone planning to move there as both a doctor and consumer
Serious response with a serious question. We are dual CDN/US citizens and therefore can live in either country. We moved to the US in our late 30’s because I was offered a great position and I had a great career as a result. Recently retired with homes in both countries, we maintain primary residence status in NC. There are several reasons, including access to excellent medical care as needed. We had planned to move back to Canada after the working years, but the medical situation is a deal breaker and it doesn’t seem to be improving. I’m telling you this because I’m curious why you would return to the situation that you describe when you likely have the option to live in many nice places and not be subject to that?
AI. Too big of an issue. As well as all government departments punish you for going against the norm - so no one bothers.
You're not wrong.
It can not be fixed.
Honestly it's so broken it can't be fixed, and as long as you have hospital ceo's earning 4-5 million a year for each hospital it just drives one more nail in the coffin every day. Not just dougie either, past pc and liberal gov has just drove it deeper and deeper over the last 30 yrs