Ontario, medical association near new compensation deal they say will help retain, recruit family doctors
The Ontario government and the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) say they're close to reaching a new compensation deal for doctors working in family health organizations, which is intended to draw more physicians to family medicine amid a provincial doctor shortage.
Both parties say the proposed changes, which would impact roughly 6,500 family physicians, are intended to encourage more doctors to practice or remain in comprehensive family medicine. Negotiations are happening as more than two million Ontarians are without a family doctor.
The new model, called FHO+, would allow doctors to bill for administrative tasks that are currently unpaid, on top of clinical tasks, according to the OMA. The Ontario College of Family Physicians says in an average week, doctors spend about 19 hours on administrative tasks, such as filling out forms, charting and reviewing test results.
An OMA spokesperson said in an email that the new compensation model "recognizes family physicians are treating patients with increasingly complex conditions, which often require physicians to spend more time completing administrative tasks."
"We believe allowing family physicians to bill for this larger administrative workload will attract and retain more of them in Ontario," Julia Costanzo said in the emailed statement.
"Our hope is that this new model will enable more Ontarians to [be] able access a family doctor."
The FHO+ model will also end "negation," the OMA statement said, the practice of financially penalizing a family doctor when a patient of theirs who is part of a family health team goes to a walk-in clinic or an emergency department for non-emergency care.
The proposed deal would update the current compensation model, which pays doctors working in the province's 615 family health organizations through capitation. While different doctors are compensated in different ways, most family doctors get an annual payment from the government for every patient on their roster, with payments adjusted for factors like age and patient complexity.
Bachir Tazkarji, a family physician and medical director of the teaching unit at Summerville Family Health Team, says he thinks the new deal would make comprehensive family medicine a bigger draw for new doctors.
"Physicians are staying away from comprehensive family medicine practice, because they have less compensation, where, if they're working in hospitals or O.R., for example, they get compensated for more of this work," he said, adding that about 15 to 35 per cent of his month is spent doing administrative work.
"I would think this [deal] is going to be very attractive and helpful to physicians for a better quality of life, reducing burnout and improving the patient's care, improving the direct contact with patients," he said.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones told reporters at an unrelated news conference Wednesday that she would not comment on the details of negotiations with OMA, but that talks have been generally positive.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said in an email that the "FHO+ model incentivizes enrolling new patients, promotes shifting procedures to clinics instead of emergency departments, and strengthens incentives for after-hours care to expand access."
The proposed deal was sent to arbitration in June, with a ruling expected in the fall. OMA CEO Kimberly Moran says the deal is about 90 per cent agreed upon and would be in place in April 2026 if finalized.
She told CBC Radio's Here and Now Wednesday that while it's important doctors are compensated for "the really large and alarming amount of clinical administration time that they're spending," the province also needs to support physicians with teams and artificial intelligence tools that will reduce the work in the first place.
"They didn't go to medical school [to be] on their computer. They went to medical school because they like to treat patients," she said.
The Ford government has promised to connect every Ontarian to a family doctor or primary care team by 2029.
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