B.C.’s Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau will be hosting a townhall to address the family doctor shortage. According to Furstenau, around 900,000 British Columbians do not have access to a family doctor. Part of the reason, she claims, for this shortage is that the province’s payment model is such that much of a doctor’s income is consumed due to the overhead of running a practice and paying their employees.
For example, a family doctor is currently paid between $34.79 and $44.44 through the Medical Services Plan depending on the patient’s age for a typical patient visit regardless of the length of the visit. This payment structure incentivizes doctors to keep patient visits short which can lead to patients feeling like their doctor really is not listening to them.
According to Canada’s Job Bank, the median salary for a general practitioner or family physician in British Columbia is around $164,237 which is about 24% lower than the median salary in Canada. On top of that, doctor’s need to pay their medical office assistants, rental on their clinics, liability insurance, medical supplies, etc.
At the end of the month, a family doctor makes considerably less money than some feel is worth their time leading them to close down their practices and switch over to exclusively virtual care instead. Sonia Furstenau wants to “overhaul the payment model to make it easier for doctors to run a family practice”.
For those interested in attending the Town Hall, you can submit questions ahead of time using the link provided.
https://www.bcgreens.ca/town_hall_addressing_the_family_doctor_shortage