TORONTO — Ontario's doctors have ratified a new three-year agreement with the Ministry of Health.
The Ontario Medical Association says the agreement includes a permanent framework for virtual care of patients by telephone and video, when appropriate.
The agreement provides for a one per cent fee increase in each of the first two years, and is retroactive to April 1, 2021.
The third-year increase will be determined based on the difference between what physician expenditures were expected to be in 2023-24 had there not been a pandemic and what actual expenditures turn out to be.
Physician expenditures are primarily what they bill the government for providing care under OHIP.
Monday's announcement from the OMA outlined several other aspects of the agreement:
- A permanent framework for virtual care by telephone and video, when appropriate. The OMA said both patients and physicians have found virtual care to be effective, efficient and convenient during the pandemic.
- Provisions for more family doctors to join Family Health Organizations, groups of physicians who work together. The OMA said more than one million Ontarians do not have a primary-care physician.
- Improved parental leave benefits, which the OMA said will allow early and mid-career doctors to spend more time with their families and help address work-life balance issues.
In addition the OMA said the agreement commits both parties to modernize the OHIP Schedule of Benefits, taking into account time, intensity, complexity, risk and technical skills required for various services.
It said the government also agreed that the joint OMA-government Physician Payment Committee is now explicitly mandated to achieve gender pay equity.
Female doctors, on average, bill 13.5 per cent less on a daily basis than their male counterparts.
