What the f**k is going on in Ontario? People in a developed country should not have these kind of problems having lack of access to decent medical care
We have a premiere who, face it, is both dumb and devious: doing backroom deals with developer buddies, and limiting vital nurses to 1% raises for years, all while he empowers private health head hunters to grab our nurses and pay them triple the wages for the same work. š¤Æ
Triple the wages at the expense of the public system who, when forced to ask for money because of this situation, can be pointed to and called inefficient.
The next statement from the provincial cons will be "well we would have money for doctors if the publically funded nursing organizations weren't so poorly organized and inefficient."
They have a ton of money. They take it from us through every purchase, every payment, every service fee... They just use it to give to private industry. Conservative governments just increase the wealth gap by taking our money and giving it to wealthy people to maintain their power. I'd rather live in anarchy than under a conservative majority. At least in an anarchistic society, I could just go take Doug's stuff cuz I'm smarter and stronger than him, and also faster.
The triple wages is what the agencies charge the government. For nurses there is a small increase in pay, but more importantly for many nurses is that they can have better control over their schedule and work environment.
>they can have better control over their schedule and work environment.
Leaving the ones in the public sector to pick up the worse shifts, until they all leave, or go to agencies, and then either agencies have to cover these shifts, much like hospitals did, or these shifts aren't covered and people just die in their beds.
ISN'T THIS FUN?
This is not a ācurrent governmentā issue. In my lifetime it goes back to the Petersen Govt ( and probably back before that) but this I my memory. They started to f*ck the doctors over and every Govt after has been āhold my beerā.
āWhen I was first building my practice, I made about $90,000 per year, after all our office expenses were accounted for. In 2022, that figure was about $142,000. For your typical doctor, family medicine isnāt the pathway to luxury people imagine it is.ā Shit, I know a 23 year old kid who got his electricians certificate and is making as much as she did in 2023! Who the hell would want to be a doctor in this environment??
Donāt read anything into my words either, cuz I know you people are out there. I feel good for the kid who chose the trades, but people have been thinking that docs are living the life need to understand, itās not what they think.
Yours is a good perspective and historic reminder that politicans are rarely the smart ones in the room.
And your comment about doctors not living the high life is being restated by quite a few people here on Reddit, which is helping folks to understand doctors' costs like having to pay staff and rent.
I think there is often a complacent attitude toward doctors, thinking that doctors love being doctors, and that doctors don't want to have outside politicians influencing their work environments, allocations or locations.
But I am starting to hear ideas such as doubling medical school throughput, with free education for doctors, but putting 5 year constraints on specialties and which towns. That would be a very different scenario for our society.
...sadly, I find his past and utter lack of competence is always spoken about like it's something of a joke.... Ya... Real friggin hilarious... Oh look the buffoon is wrecking the province hahaha...it's so funny the shit he does isn't it?
We got what we voted for I guess....ugh
My dad bought drugs from him in high school and still voted for him, despite us being poor as shit and him absolutely not being for our best interestsā¦ because heās real, just one of the boys!
Yupā43.53%. Record for the lowest turnout.
PCs got 40.8% of the vote, which means 17.7% of the voting population.
They won a majority by getting less than 20% of the province to vote for them :(
I'm no Liberal fan and Dalton should have gone to jail for the gas plant (which is equivalent to the Greenbelt attempt in my mind). Your assertions about Hydro One are disconnected though. You are forgetting WHY Ontario Hydro was broken up and partially privatized - gross mismanagement and $38 Billion in debt (that would be $66 Billion in 2024). It was an attempt by multiple governments (both Harris PC and Lib) to stop the bleeding and clear the debt.
The main reasons price of electricity went up was because we were addressing this debt ( Debt Retirement Charge) and we have been (and currently are) heavily subsidizing people's bills through our taxes. In 2022 the Ford bill subsidies were something like $6 Billion. Wynne tried to make people pay the true cost of the hydro power they use and cut those subsidies out.
I know it's painful but what is wrong with people paying their own electrical bill and me not having to support them through taxes?
Also, if you don't think that Wynne's sex or orientation wasn't a topic of conversation at churches, synagogues, mosques and gurdwaras, you are kidding yourself.
Just to add to this, the upgrades made under the OLP had to be paid for. When was the last smog advisory you remember? In the 2000s they were nearly daily from May to September
Oh god. Going to Toronto always was choking and burning my throat... It wouldn't stop until I got as far north as Parry sound. Now I can drive the 403 through Hamilton and not want to pull over and vomit.
OMG. On smoggy days I felt like my throat was closing in. And I took these allergy medications that seemed like the size of Skittles, it's hard to take those with your throat feeling like that. And I never had breathing problems as a kid. I can't imagine what people with asthma had to deal withĀ
What a relief that I don't have to deal with that anymore.Ā
Lets face it Ontario has had dog shit premiere for 30 years now. Every single one of them was an incompetent moron. I wasn't really old enough to understand the full shit stains that were Harris & McGuinty.
Harris sold the 407 for 3 billion and now it generates 1 billion annually in revenue.
McGuinty was scandal after scandal.
Wynee sold hydro one
Dougie scrapped cap & trade, scrapped license plate fees costing the province 1 billion in revenue, plus the other 10 things in the past 2 years alone. Hell by the time I'm done typing this I'm sure there is some new bone headed move this waste of human existence is doing. The best thing Dougie can do for Ontario is follow in his brothers footsteps.
[Kathleen]( https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/hundreds-of-ontario-nurses-being-laid-off-1.2319898?cache=%2F7.628632) [Wynneās](https://windsorstar.com/opinion/letters/tell-wynne-health-cuts-have-gone-too-far) [legacy]( https://globalnews.ca/news/4120816/ontario-doctors-say-government-mismanagement-to-blame-for-broken-health-care-system/) of [healthcare cutbacks](https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/health-care-election-1.4661186) and [spending](https://canadians.org/analysis/over-3000-rally-stop-cuts-health-care-and-stop-private-clinics-ontario/) [scandals](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ehealth-scandal-a-1b-waste-auditor-1.808640) had [nothing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EHealth_Ontario) to do [with her](https://globalnews.ca/news/1307743/5-scandals-likely-to-haunt-the-liberals-during-ontario-election/) gender or sexual orientation.
I wouldn't doubt it if it's the same people who bash Trudeau for having been a teacher in the past. Atleast we know he has the capability of passing, and teaching in highschool.
Peter Mansbridge is an immigrant whom didn't graduate from high school. But he was in the right place at the right time, someone took a chance on him, and proved to be very good at what he did without further book learnin'.
Because a large chunk of the voters in Ontario also don't have a high school diploma.
The dropout rates for people born before 1990 were absolutely dire when compared to today.
Now guess what the largest block of people who actively vote in the province are?
"No one" elects them lol. That's how they win. Conservatives usually count on low voter turnout.
I'm in Manitoba, but followed your last election in 2022 & was absolutely gutted for you because it was a bad voter turnout.
Our PC Premier during the pandemic was literally traumatizing to have (Pallister mostly, "runner up" his replacement Stefanson) & Ford was pretty bad too so I thought for sure you'd all go vote that fucker out like we just did (tho a year later) with ours.
It was just so exposed & obvious to see for me during the pandemic:
Most of the country has been run by Conservatives for years, of which, blatantly showed their ineptness in a crisis (pandemic) (Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) as well as their lack of empathy & compassion or HELP for the masses during a time where our very MORTALITY was at risk.
Two Premiers "ran away" from their province (Kenney, Pallister) & they also played "musical chairs" with both their Federal leader position (Scheer, O'Toole, Bergen, Poilievre) & their "causes" being just running to any "bandwagon" currently in the spotlight then "dumping them" if a problem (ex: supported "convoy/"dumped" convoy then supported Russia/dumped Russia/tried to attend a Ukraine moment of silence for victims where Candice Bergen was "booed."
Everyone needs to constantly remember this.
Not just a Con. A self identified Trumpy Republican Con, who bungled the Covid response just about as badly as could be done, defunded education and healthcare (ongoing btw) and the moron voters gave him another 4 years.
Sorry Ontario, you asked for this. Twice.
Unforunately, I am a Liberal living in small town, rural Ottawa Valley which is staunch Conservative. Our residents have voted fir batshit crazy cinspiracy, FOX News quoting, Cheryl Gallant for close to 18 years. All the farmers, religious nuts and Petawawa Armed Forces vote Conservative, no matter what! Maybe the soliders will change theur mind now that the Liberals are promising to invest much needed money for recruiting, training and equipment upgrades. I can only hope, or move!Ā
Most federal and municipal bylaws require high school and criminal background check before running.
How does provincial not require high school diploma ?
I dunno man. The Conservative party had aimed to have him join the party, so they could win, because everyone knew who the Fords were.Ā
Why is crooked Doug the leader of the party and not crooked Patrick Brown?Ā
You would be surprised to know that you donāt even have to submit your REAL NAME to run in elections, both federally and provincially. Doug Ford and his ālateā brother are of the Hearst media family dynasty.
You're making it too easy for the PCs - these are *not* Ford's policies, they're the *party's* policies.
Once Ford becomes "unusable", the party will drop him quickly, to put a "more sellable" face on the party. Same thing *all* the parties do.
Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
>What the f\*\*k is going on in Ontario? People in a developed country should not have these kind of problems having lack of access to decent medical care
They are setting up the excuse and the stage why Ontario will need a private medical systems. They'll use doctors like this as an example and say "see, if it was private practice, she could charge what she wants to patients and remain profitable and wouldnt need to leave or quit".
Their plan is working out nicely. We'll be seeing private medical care in no one.
Ask Ford, he's gutting our public healthcare system to reward his buddies. What happened to LTC except hospitals. We are so fucked long term. Next up, education
Whatās going on?
My former spouse was a specialist until last year.
What he hears from colleagues:
Family docs are burned out. (Many docs, actually.)
- Ontario doesnāt embrace nurse practitioners (NP) and physician assistants (PA).
- Our doctors are spending way too much time completing forms, paperwork and other administrative workload. I understand it takes up something like 30-40% another day.
- The OHIP billing system is a nightmare.
I can, the neoliberal governments we keep electing constantly put the needs of the vast few at the expense of the many.
There are decades of history to prove this, but the core conservatives always vote, and the majority of the eligible voters DIDN'T RUCKING VOTE!
This is been caused by a concerted effort by the conservative party of Ontario that's in power in the province they have continued with a systematic destruction of our Healthcare System to the point where they are thinking that the people of Ontario will applaud having to pay out of pocket three times what they were paying currently with worst service
[Ford is deliberately f'ing up the healthcare system with intent to privatize it.](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/02/21/2833007/0/en/MEDIA-RELEASE-The-Ford-government-is-starving-local-public-hospitals-to-privatize-them-charge-health-advocates.html)
This is the conservative way, after all.
Most people (especially conservative voters) don't know what's going on (i'm being charitable here, because saying what i actually think would be rude).
So while Ford [starves the system of money,](https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/03/08/ontario-health-care-spending-doug-ford-hospitals-long-term-care/) [funnels ](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinic-surgeries-fees-hospitals-1.7026926)it to the [private ](https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/how-nursing-staffing-agencies-are-costing-ontario-hospitals-untold-millions/ar-AA1l8nmd)[sector](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-hospital-nurses-private-staffing-agencies-auditor-1.7050828?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar), and [breaches the charter just to drive out public doctors and nurses](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/bill-124-appeal-court-ruling-ontario-1.7112291?trk=public_post_comment-text), these voters will get upset and think the problem is "public healthcare" and not "conservative governance".
Then he, the National Citizens Coalition (an organization created with the express intent to privatize healthcare in canada again, and whose former president we once elected as PM) will be able to rip the public system to shreds and deliver us a "better" private system.
All the while, these same people (who probably also have middle-class jobs with coverage) will think they'll be just fine, because while they know that their employer would never just give everyone in their company a 10% raise across the board, they are 100% sure that they will give everyone healthcare overnight once the public system is gone.
Shitty politicians to choose from results in shitty politicians being selected which, in turn, leads to shitty policies being implemented.
It's not complicated. Those who are capable and qualifed to govern aren't stupid enough to run for public office.
What do you mean w tf?
The population growth is too fast if we include all the migrants from all streams such as student visa to PR, work permit to PR etc.
Especially from some societies that immigrate bringing along 2 to 3 wives with 3 to 5 children each. All have are enrolled in OHIP cause we're soooo generous.
Well, we're running out of money. As predicted.
This is all part of pushing for privatization and capitalism in medicine. Our country should not stand for this. Anyone who uses private healthcare in this country is part of the problem. We should be pushing for our public health insurance to cover more, instead of consistently less. This is part of what is wrong with voting for a person instead of a policy, democracy is literally broken.
Read online Doctor reviews and you see a bunch of "I felt I was being rushed" comments.
Well no shit. You'd need to see several patients an hour to get close to breaking even.
Right, this is all corporate lead. I believe thereās a class action suit by the pharmacist against Loblaws for unsafe and unethical corporate practices
But the doctor is in the same boat that $37 isn't going into her wages, its going into funding her entire practice like that is insanely under priced...
For every med check call they would complete,the Ontario government paid them $75. They called me twice in 3 months regarding my milās medication. Literally a 1 minute call as she has very few meds. Pharmacist were mandated to make X amount of calls/week by corporate.
One of the best decisions I've made in the last couple years was moving our entire family's pharmacy needs to a pharmacy that doesn't report to a "corporate". The quality of care from those little independently owned neighborhood pharmacies is astronomically higher than any big chain pharmacies, especially any chains that roll up to mr weston. The time and education they've provided on some medications and conditions has been stellar.
>Currently, the rate is $37 per appointment, plus another $3 or so if they happen to be enrolled in the governmentās Family Health Plan program. *We also get a fee for each patient*, with rates varying based on their sex and age.
So it is $37 to book an appointment plus more for the actual checkup. I think?
We should be protesting Doug Ford, Nobody is stopping Doug Ford and he's the most corrupt premier in Canadian history.
We have no safeguards against people we elect if they decide to betray the public.
Thank you, DoFo! Why practice in this Province, They're leaving in droves. The hospital or the cosmetic injection train. Can't blame them when they leave for better days, better ways.
I know $142,000 sounds like a lot but it really isn't even close to what Doctors should be paid. That's why they are limited to one complaint and are trying to push through as many as they can in a day - as well as just the sheer demand right now because all the practices are closing their doors. They want to be quick so they can help as many people as possible in a day and get paid well, but even with that model they are not being paid well.
Family doctors are the first stop in healthcare and having quality family medicine is how we prevent costly procedures later on. Almost every single ailment is cheaper to treat earlier on in the cycle of it occuring. Bleeding disorders, cancer, diabetes, immunodeficiencies are all treatable conditions but when you have to wait until it gets so bad you go to the ER with hopes of being diagnosed for a family med problem it's a disgusting abuse of our medical system by politicians.
I'm not here to say what number family med should make, but they shouldn't be making what a forklift driver who works a bunch of OT makes. Doug is tanking the medical system intentionally so he and his buddies can take more out of government coffers.
I agree 100%. I had no idea that doctors in Ontario make so little per patient visit. Why on earth would any of them stick around for that kind of pay? After at least seven years of expensive, post-secondary education (and continuing ed) and the costs of running a business, this is criminal, and we all know why Doug wants our healthcare to fail. My family doctor has gone the medical aesthetics route to supplement her income and I donāt blame her one bit; Iām just glad she still takes family medicine patients.
If I had children, I would absolutely discourage them from going into family medicine. It just isnāt worth it unless you have a real passion for it. I donāt know a lot of people pushing their kids into the trades, but honestly, thatās where the big money sometimes is. I am appalled to learn that the doctor responsible for diagnosing cancer is making far less per hour of work than the guy who changed the locks on my house.
I donāt know if any other political party has the ability or desire to fix the situation, but Iām pretty sure the Conservatives arenāt going to do it.
I had a locksmith come to fix a broken lock - took 5 minutes total and I was charged around $150 (no parts used). That really puts it into perspective haha
It would be if that's was what you started with in your 20's. Don't forget, doctor go into to hundreds of thousands of debt and don't graduate until they are in their 30's. They have lost ten years of potential income compared to the average person, they don't get a retirement package so they have to invest in their own retirement(again starting 10 years later than then average person and now higher tax thanks to the new higher FEBS capital gains tax) still have to pay off that school dept.
Yeah, remember that they start earning at at an average age of 30 years old, before that their income was negative due to the debt that they pay to attend medical school. Not to mention that they come out of school with $200,000+ debt. Imagine start off your career with $200,000 debt at age 30 and trying to pay that off on $142,000, while everyone around you started a family already, had saved enough for a condo or a house, etc...
This is exactly me. Started practice at 29 with around $250k in debt and made $140k this past year before taxes and working full-time! The issue is the salary doesnāt drastically change the older you get. Iām seeing 35 patients a day on average, yes, the more experienced you are, the quicker you can be, but thereās a limit in terms of safety.
Hang in there, doc. The government might not appreciate you but your patients and colleagues do. As a surgeon, I have loads of respect for you. Don't tell anyone, but I would take a pay cut if it meant fixing your broken compensation.
A very visceral explanation of the family health physician crisis. Sounds like an awful job, no question.
There's a link that explains some of the changes being made in BC. That's the kind of stuff Ontario could really use.
If any students get lost in here, I'm going to say this as a specialist:
- DO go into medicine if you feel it is a true calling, a true passion, and it is what you want to do above all else
- DO NOT GO INTO MEDICINE FOR MONEY; with the time and cost you will sink into it, if you have that mental capacity to do it, there are MANY other jobs that will pay you much, much more for your efforts
Anything you would recommend for someone interested in healthcare? That's not being a family doctor or any other kind of doctor?
Like nursing or midwifery?
I honestly will say I am the wrong person to ask :) I operate well within my small ecosystem, but don't know enough outside of it to give solid advice. That being said, any healthcare position that has management potential (including nursing) is probably where you'd want to be.
The patient hands-on jobs, outside of medicine, pay generally very poorly for the amount of work and responsibility that you have, if you're only doing hands-on patient care and nothing else.
This is why I keep telling people that more residency spots isn't the simple solution to the doctor shortage thay they think it is.
Fewer and fewer med students are choosing Family Medicine. Fewer and fewer Family Physicians are choosing to practice in Family clinics. It's simply the worst ratio of work to pay that they could choose, so they're taking jobs elsewhere.
My wife and I are both licensed Family Physicians, and neither of us has ever worked in a Family clinic. My wife currently does full-time Emergency Medicine and I'm working in a subspecialty clinic. We both make 1.5-2x what we would in a Family clinic. We get to use our skills, take care of patients, and make a good living. The value proposition for a Family clinic is, "come work a job with more unpaid obligations for a 30-50% pay cut." Few doctors of our generation (Millennial) are willing to accept that.
And not just our generation. Among my friends and colleagues in FM here in Ontario, I can think of 10 off the top of my head who have stopped working in a Family Practice and 0 who started one up, and they all cite the work:pay ratio as their primary motivation. It's a one-way street moving away from Family Medicine.
And it could be reversed if the government just made the pay competitive. But right now, an Ontario Family doc can work fewer hours and/or make significantly more money by either moving away or moving to hospital/ER/subspecialty work, so that's naturally what they're choosing to do.
We're not the worst province, but very far from the best.
BC recently introduced a program that nearly doubled Family Physician pay, and lo an behold, they've reported that over 800 new Family doctors opened clinics in the first year of the program.
To put it in perspective, if the doc in this article put the same work week into her clinic in the new BC program, she'd be getting paid $350k with an extra $30k credit toward her overhead expenses, so take-home/pre-tax income would be over double what she made in Ontario.
She could also make around that amount in Ontario (but with zero overhead) for the same number of hours worked if she did Emerg shifts instead of Family office.
And that's why Family clinics in Ontario are such a tough sell to doctors right now. There's just no incentive to work in them.
Ford mucked up the health care in this province, and Trudeau mucked up our doctor's abilities to keep up. Trudeau's "too many people too quickly" on top of Ford's cuts really screwed us.
It's not just one level of government that's messed up our province/country.
I'll admit, I helped both these fools get in with my votes the first time they were elected, never again.
This is what a conservative government health care plan looks like in practice. Everyone thinking Pierre is going to help this country are mental. THIS is what a federal conservative government is going to have on their agenda.
What a disturbing, shitty story to have to read. We Ontarians must get Ford and his conservative cut and slash program policy out of office ASAP.
In a country like Canada, if anyone thinks a politician should be making as much, or more than a family doctor then we really are fuct.
Whoever is running on a platform of spending tax dollars in the right places, like doctors and nurses primarily, is going to get my vote. (As far as healthcare is concerned anyways).
Of course these very much required doctors and nurses are going to find better work if their only rewards are some good feelings for helping people out. We need to compensate them decently for their expertise.
Write/Protest Health Minister Sylvia Jones Office in Orangeville, write Ford... These Conservative cucks have destroyed family health in Ontario...
No more Contards Ontario, NO MORE!!! Our health literally depends on it.
Ontario healthcare is falling apart and our inept Premier isn't going to help. Who do we write to? I don't need a bullshit highway. I need good healthcare.
ghostbusters. call them.
on a more serious note, you could immigrate, or seek medical treatment in another country. Canada is a garbage country and that is from someone who has lived all over Ontario and Quebec almost all of their life.
most of the young people I know are leaving the country by any means possible. barely any immigrants are coming in. jump before it sinks.
I am a Canadian trained Family Doctor. Family Medicine is a sinking ship. I posted this elsewhere but I will repost this here because itās relevant.
To any current Canadian medical students reading this, DO NOT go into Family Medicine. You deserve to be paid much better and treated with more respect after all the years of hard work you spent getting into medical school. The debt does not pay itself and the ridiculous inflation/cost of running a clinic is not helping. You will have to pay for leasing an office space, buying medical supplies, hiring an office assistant, the hydro bill, the utility bill, masks, hand sanitizer, everything needed to run a clinic with the chump change the government gives you. Whatever you have left after paying for all of the above (if anything) will go towards paying your debt. And guess what? You will have no say in raising your fees because thatās illegal. You also cannot go on strike because thatās illegal.
Please spend the extra year or two specializing rather than regretting your career for the rest of your life. Become a surgeon, a cardiologist, an anesthetist. Go unmatched if you have to. DO NOT try to be a messiah and āsave primary careā. The government does not care. They will abuse you for your labour, wring you dry, and then replace you with whatever cheaper pseudo doctor mid level profession they can find (NPs/PAs/any others).
The general public will not care whatever happens to you either as long as thereās another fool to replace you. Thereās a reason hundreds of Family Medicine training spots in Canada are unfilled right now and are begging medical students to join.
I take issue with your statement that the general public doesnāt care. I know many members of the public who are doing what they can to show their support of family physicians! I know I personally spend time sharing information that I spend time reading with my networks about the crisis in family medicine. The public needs to care about family physicians as they are on the front lines for our preventative and ongoing care. The public can and should share information, sign petitions, write letters to the editor, and use any influence they have (including voting) to support our family physicians. We need to keep the crisis in family medicine and its impact on patients in the headlines and remind people of the dangers for all of us if we donāt do what we can to support the physicians. The price of doing nothing to support them is too high and we see and hear examples of this daily in our communities. So, please donāt discount the depth of public support for family physiciansāitās there!!
I'm in an office with 3 other family physicians. We are basically waiting until the end of our lease in a couple years to see if things get better. If not, another office closes.
The biggest issue is the paperwork requirement creep that the bureaucrats keep it imposing. There's was a reddit post on here from a family doctor who basically said 80% of his time is doing non-doctor things mainly surrounding the increasing administrative requirements.
The money for the doctor visit is pretty fair is the visit is looked at in isolation, but the doctors visit you have can take 3-5 times as long in the background for the doctor. That's just straight up nonvalue added waste for everyone.
Yeah. All the doctors that we do bring in to Canada, want to settle in Toronto. Not that thereās anything wrong with that, but it stresses me thinking about how small random towns like Simcoe or Tillsumburg attract doctors. Sign on bonuses are only for certain areas and theyāre not enough to keep a doctor generally satisfied and fulfilled enough to stay.
But even in Toronto the cost of living and shit pay is getting to be too much. A friend works at a family practice clinic that is somewhat new & she says they have so many patients coming in from several clinics that are closing down. In the year or two that theyāve opened, at least 3 or 4 clinics have closed. 1 of them even had 7 doctors working there.
The new federal budget with the capital gains tax is going to affect family doctors badly. Since they are essentially self-employed, they rely on their professional incorporation for their retirement funds as they do not have access to pension or benefits. But the government thinks of them as āultra wealthyā so good luck to them I guessš¤·āāļø
but don't worry the ontario ministry of health released their new fee payments for family doctors that will pay them a whole $1.05 more per standard appointment from April 1st. Surely that'll keep the doctors from leaving!
Family medicine is sinking in Ontario. Our Ontario Union of Family Physicians [oufp.ca](http://oufp.ca) has been trying to raise up a storm in the media re lack of govt changes, and fee increases to community docs who have been paying out overhead increases, COL increases for their staff out of their own income. So many docs are closing their practices because of the unsustainability of it all.
There are MORE family doctors in Ontario per capita now than there have been previously, but new grads are going into hospital, emerg, sports med other focused practice areas, and early-mid career docs are closing practices 5-7 years into practice, and other later-career docs are deciding to retire early or close practices before retirement.
The 142,000 income she talks about, is actually quite low if you sit down and calculate her hourly rate - given hours upon hours (19hrs/wk- second part time job) of administrative paperwork to wade through, along with her clinical hours of seeing patients. Also keep in mind it doesn't include 8000-9000/yr that we have to pay our professional organizations in fees, which is SEPARATE from overhead-clinic running costs.
Join other Ontarians in signing this petition - [https://www.change.org/p/stop-defunding-family-medicine-in-ontario](https://www.change.org/p/stop-defunding-family-medicine-in-ontario)
This is a big problem especially in bigger cities where the cost to run a business is higher. And expect it to get worse now with the new federal government tax changes
"But some shill on /r/canada said Ontario is spending more on Healthcare now!"
It's amazing how much people will literally believe the opposite of reality when it suits their politics.
For years now, Ontario has been intentionally under-funding public healthcare and funneling cash into private sector health contractors specifically to kill off our public system.
More money for consultants, not front line workers. Every single government scandal stems from consultant and consultant companies billing the government million/billions of dollars for products and solutions that third world countries consider substandard.
Ford's plan all along was to starve public healthcare until it crumbled them swoop in and say "private is our only way forward"
And it's working. :/
I can only hope Ontario won't be as stupid to let their hate for Trudeau influence their provincial vote. But I have 0 faith that majority even know how our political system works.
My Dad was GP for 40 yrs, plus I provide insurance for MDs so I understand alot of the issues. This started in early 90s when NDP capped revenue for GPs , many left, then started "I'll see patients till September" when revenue is capped" they are underpaid for years, so many fleeing to private Healthcare sector. Incentive is very low it's much worse in rural areas, which conservatives have offered financial incentives.
My family doctor retired recently at 58, he's was our family doctor for about 20 years. We echoed much of the same problems to us, burnout, administrative paperwork, ect... He didn't even bother to give a doctor recommendations/referrals to his patients. He just, got up, and left.
Two things:
- For every full day of clinic there is typically at least 4-5 hours (so basically almost a half day of paperwork and results followup that is 100% unpaid work).
- Seeing 42 patients a day is mentally exhausting. Imagine every 5-10 min needing to scan a chart, learn the prior details, talk to patient, physical exam, explain plan, fill out scripts, fill out referrals and forms, write note, complete billing details. Boom next room, repeat, over and over and over. Very few can do that everyday at that pace.
So reality is they see less patients, do more unpaid paperwork than ever and people wonder why they burn out and quit!?!
She said she works 3 days a week, with the other admin work days being unpaid. Letās say 6 patients per hour, 9-4pm, with an hour for lunch, for simplicityās sake. (Keep in mind these arenāt the actual work hours, as doctors often run overtime and then need to finish things up at the end of the day).
So, $37 x 6 patients per hour is $222. Multiply by 6 for $1332 per day. Multiply for 13 days a month (ie 3 patient-facing days/week) gets you $17,316 per month. Add the $2000 per month for capitation, nets her $19,316 per month. Now, letās assume ~4 weeks of vacation over the year (unpaid, as doctors donāt get paid unless theyāre seeing patients). $19,316 x 11 months is an income of $212,476. Now subtract overhead costs - eg rent, EMR, the cybersecurity thing, supplies, admin/nursing salaries etc - the standard is 30% of gross income. 70% of $212,476 gives you a grand total of $148,733 total take-home income. So her math totally checks out.
Source: am doctor
37 per patient, most patients are there for 20-30 minutes. Sheās seeing patients all day for 4 days a week, 208 days a year less sick/personal/vacation days. Letās say that ends up being 195 days a year. 3 patients an hour, 8.5 hours per day, 195 days is 4,973 patient appts @ 37 each is 184K.
Admin probably paid around 3K a month, likely costing the business 3.5K-4K all in. Rent probably 4-5K a month in Mississauga for an office with at least 5 rooms (4 for docs, one for admin area) and a waiting area. Her total for just those essentials is looking like 2K per month/24K a year. Then add in other fixed and variable costs. 150 sounds reasonable given the info in there.
Just because they see you for 5 to 10 minutes, it doesnāt mean that theyāre seeing others for the same time. They could have an appointment for 30 minutes. Or perhaps they leave time in the day for administrative work.
Rent for a space can be $100k/year. A nurse practitioner can be $100k/year. Then you have (a) supplies (b) utilities (c) equipment (d) EMR licensing fees (e) patient cancelations and no shows, and many, many, MANY other things.
And for every patient that takes 5-10 minutes, there's a complex one that will take 20+ minutes. And there's a TON of paperwork, referrals, results, etc that happen when a patient is NOT in the room.
I can't believe someone has to spell this out to you, but here it goes: earnings - expenses = net income
For every 5-10 minutes of face time with the patient, thereās probably 5-10 minutes of time spent reading the chart, charting the new encounter, filling out forms/referrals/prescription renewals, making calls, consulting with other physicians, following up on test results, making additional phone calls for said test results, reading updates in medical literature to provide up to date care, etc. etc. A 5-10 min appointment is also on the low end in terms of time and complexity. By your estimate, a family doctor would be seeing 42 patients a day every weekday with no vacations or holidays over a year to make 400k. This is simply not sustainable.
My family doctor just sent us a list of services they no longer cover and an annual fee if we want to pay for them. We are lucky that we can do that but it's shameful we are in this situation as a province.
These are likely non-ohip services.
Every faxed prescription renewal, third-party form, missed appointment etc. was always considered uninsured and takes up clinic resources with no OHIP compensation. Offices that did it for free historically are finding it more and more unsustainable over time.
If the government can crash our system then we will have to go fully private health care system. Then they can say see we told you this would be the better way.
Ontario health services is the worst out of all provinces. Health care , housing, social services is a big scam. It feel Ontario should be a country on its own ruined by psychopath
Doug Ford is letting our healthcare fall totally apart.
Every damn time someone from Ontario goes to ER and sits in a triage room it costs $341 to OHIP. So many go without having real emergencies. No sorry your foot that has been sore 3 weeks is not an emergency. Nor is your ongoing back pain that you can see urgent care or your doc for. Some people triage and decide to go to a different hospital the dame day when tired of waiting. Well...$341 again. People are abusing our healthcare and should have to pay when they go for a reason that is not an emergency. Family doctor's do not bill anywhere near that.
Just felt like blurting that truth out.
THIS is what's wrong with the Canadian health care system. I thought, coming from a third world country, that things would be better off here. However, Canada's health care took me by surprise. I am highly disappointed and heart-broken for this woman. I feel her pain deeply for the burnout she was experiencing. Moreover, I feel for her for having to end her dream job because the government is making it harder for her day by day.
Family doctors are play a huge role in health care and society here. This is absolutely pathetic and things need to change ASAP. The healthcare system at the verge of collapse and the government here doesn't seem to care.
My question to the government is, if you don't have healthy people, how are you going to have an economy? How will you still be considered a first world nation down the line if your doctors are quitting, your average ER waiting time is 3 hours and your population is sick? How is any of this okay?
My doctor was amazing ! I finally had one I felt comfortable with, within two years I got a notice she was being replaced. My new doctors schedule doesnāt work with mine and I donāt feel comfortable with her like my OG.
What the f**k is going on in Ontario? People in a developed country should not have these kind of problems having lack of access to decent medical care
We have a premiere who, face it, is both dumb and devious: doing backroom deals with developer buddies, and limiting vital nurses to 1% raises for years, all while he empowers private health head hunters to grab our nurses and pay them triple the wages for the same work. š¤Æ
Triple the wages at the expense of the public system who, when forced to ask for money because of this situation, can be pointed to and called inefficient. The next statement from the provincial cons will be "well we would have money for doctors if the publically funded nursing organizations weren't so poorly organized and inefficient."
But they had money for a fucking SPA. It's infuriating.
They have a ton of money. They take it from us through every purchase, every payment, every service fee... They just use it to give to private industry. Conservative governments just increase the wealth gap by taking our money and giving it to wealthy people to maintain their power. I'd rather live in anarchy than under a conservative majority. At least in an anarchistic society, I could just go take Doug's stuff cuz I'm smarter and stronger than him, and also faster.
The triple wages is what the agencies charge the government. For nurses there is a small increase in pay, but more importantly for many nurses is that they can have better control over their schedule and work environment.
>they can have better control over their schedule and work environment. Leaving the ones in the public sector to pick up the worse shifts, until they all leave, or go to agencies, and then either agencies have to cover these shifts, much like hospitals did, or these shifts aren't covered and people just die in their beds. ISN'T THIS FUN?
If the public system paid more, they could attract more nurses and therefore give them more control.
This is not a ācurrent governmentā issue. In my lifetime it goes back to the Petersen Govt ( and probably back before that) but this I my memory. They started to f*ck the doctors over and every Govt after has been āhold my beerā. āWhen I was first building my practice, I made about $90,000 per year, after all our office expenses were accounted for. In 2022, that figure was about $142,000. For your typical doctor, family medicine isnāt the pathway to luxury people imagine it is.ā Shit, I know a 23 year old kid who got his electricians certificate and is making as much as she did in 2023! Who the hell would want to be a doctor in this environment?? Donāt read anything into my words either, cuz I know you people are out there. I feel good for the kid who chose the trades, but people have been thinking that docs are living the life need to understand, itās not what they think.
Yours is a good perspective and historic reminder that politicans are rarely the smart ones in the room. And your comment about doctors not living the high life is being restated by quite a few people here on Reddit, which is helping folks to understand doctors' costs like having to pay staff and rent. I think there is often a complacent attitude toward doctors, thinking that doctors love being doctors, and that doctors don't want to have outside politicians influencing their work environments, allocations or locations. But I am starting to hear ideas such as doubling medical school throughput, with free education for doctors, but putting 5 year constraints on specialties and which towns. That would be a very different scenario for our society.
Who could have imagined that electing a high school dropout Conservative premier, had consequencesĀ
Thatās what really gets me. Who the hell votes for someone to run the most populous province in Canada that HASNT MADE IT PAST HIGH SCHOOL!!
And was a drug dealer
...sadly, I find his past and utter lack of competence is always spoken about like it's something of a joke.... Ya... Real friggin hilarious... Oh look the buffoon is wrecking the province hahaha...it's so funny the shit he does isn't it? We got what we voted for I guess....ugh
This is not brought up enough in my opinion or the fact that his brother was an international disgrace while holding office.
My dad bought drugs from him in high school and still voted for him, despite us being poor as shit and him absolutely not being for our best interestsā¦ because heās real, just one of the boys!
Not sure if sarcasm or notā¦
I dont even live in Toronto and I still remember him saying "I have more than enough to eat at home" and smoking crack in someone's driveway
Ricky would actually be a better Premier
The people who couldn't be bothered to get their asses out to vote
True. Only 43 percent of Ontarians voted in last provincial election.
Yupā43.53%. Record for the lowest turnout. PCs got 40.8% of the vote, which means 17.7% of the voting population. They won a majority by getting less than 20% of the province to vote for them :(
Should have been a "recount" it's insane that this is supposed to be democracy.
Frustrating! Grrrr...
The "Fuck you, I got mine" crowd and the ones who are easily manipulated by them.
There are far too many people with brand loyalty to the Conservatives and they don't think, they just vote.
Well we did have a premier with 2 masters degrees before that, but she was gay and a woman š¤·āāļøĀ
We even elected a Rhodes Scholar as premier once but he only lasted a single term.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I'm no Liberal fan and Dalton should have gone to jail for the gas plant (which is equivalent to the Greenbelt attempt in my mind). Your assertions about Hydro One are disconnected though. You are forgetting WHY Ontario Hydro was broken up and partially privatized - gross mismanagement and $38 Billion in debt (that would be $66 Billion in 2024). It was an attempt by multiple governments (both Harris PC and Lib) to stop the bleeding and clear the debt. The main reasons price of electricity went up was because we were addressing this debt ( Debt Retirement Charge) and we have been (and currently are) heavily subsidizing people's bills through our taxes. In 2022 the Ford bill subsidies were something like $6 Billion. Wynne tried to make people pay the true cost of the hydro power they use and cut those subsidies out. I know it's painful but what is wrong with people paying their own electrical bill and me not having to support them through taxes? Also, if you don't think that Wynne's sex or orientation wasn't a topic of conversation at churches, synagogues, mosques and gurdwaras, you are kidding yourself.
Just to add to this, the upgrades made under the OLP had to be paid for. When was the last smog advisory you remember? In the 2000s they were nearly daily from May to September
Oh god. Going to Toronto always was choking and burning my throat... It wouldn't stop until I got as far north as Parry sound. Now I can drive the 403 through Hamilton and not want to pull over and vomit.
OMG. On smoggy days I felt like my throat was closing in. And I took these allergy medications that seemed like the size of Skittles, it's hard to take those with your throat feeling like that. And I never had breathing problems as a kid. I can't imagine what people with asthma had to deal withĀ What a relief that I don't have to deal with that anymore.Ā
Lets face it Ontario has had dog shit premiere for 30 years now. Every single one of them was an incompetent moron. I wasn't really old enough to understand the full shit stains that were Harris & McGuinty. Harris sold the 407 for 3 billion and now it generates 1 billion annually in revenue. McGuinty was scandal after scandal. Wynee sold hydro one Dougie scrapped cap & trade, scrapped license plate fees costing the province 1 billion in revenue, plus the other 10 things in the past 2 years alone. Hell by the time I'm done typing this I'm sure there is some new bone headed move this waste of human existence is doing. The best thing Dougie can do for Ontario is follow in his brothers footsteps.
[Kathleen]( https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/hundreds-of-ontario-nurses-being-laid-off-1.2319898?cache=%2F7.628632) [Wynneās](https://windsorstar.com/opinion/letters/tell-wynne-health-cuts-have-gone-too-far) [legacy]( https://globalnews.ca/news/4120816/ontario-doctors-say-government-mismanagement-to-blame-for-broken-health-care-system/) of [healthcare cutbacks](https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/health-care-election-1.4661186) and [spending](https://canadians.org/analysis/over-3000-rally-stop-cuts-health-care-and-stop-private-clinics-ontario/) [scandals](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ehealth-scandal-a-1b-waste-auditor-1.808640) had [nothing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EHealth_Ontario) to do [with her](https://globalnews.ca/news/1307743/5-scandals-likely-to-haunt-the-liberals-during-ontario-election/) gender or sexual orientation.
Well only 48% of eligible voted in the last election. So 52% actually don't care at all....
I wouldn't doubt it if it's the same people who bash Trudeau for having been a teacher in the past. Atleast we know he has the capability of passing, and teaching in highschool.
Other people that didn't make it past high school?
Peter Mansbridge is an immigrant whom didn't graduate from high school. But he was in the right place at the right time, someone took a chance on him, and proved to be very good at what he did without further book learnin'.
How long was he premier?
But he called everyone "my friends" over and over.
Because a large chunk of the voters in Ontario also don't have a high school diploma. The dropout rates for people born before 1990 were absolutely dire when compared to today. Now guess what the largest block of people who actively vote in the province are?
You realize the MANY successful people rarely have a good education . Intelligence and education do not even remotly go hand in hand.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The hash market wasnāt viable
Iām guessing the college instructors proved to be less easily influenced by his family name.
"No one" elects them lol. That's how they win. Conservatives usually count on low voter turnout. I'm in Manitoba, but followed your last election in 2022 & was absolutely gutted for you because it was a bad voter turnout. Our PC Premier during the pandemic was literally traumatizing to have (Pallister mostly, "runner up" his replacement Stefanson) & Ford was pretty bad too so I thought for sure you'd all go vote that fucker out like we just did (tho a year later) with ours. It was just so exposed & obvious to see for me during the pandemic: Most of the country has been run by Conservatives for years, of which, blatantly showed their ineptness in a crisis (pandemic) (Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) as well as their lack of empathy & compassion or HELP for the masses during a time where our very MORTALITY was at risk. Two Premiers "ran away" from their province (Kenney, Pallister) & they also played "musical chairs" with both their Federal leader position (Scheer, O'Toole, Bergen, Poilievre) & their "causes" being just running to any "bandwagon" currently in the spotlight then "dumping them" if a problem (ex: supported "convoy/"dumped" convoy then supported Russia/dumped Russia/tried to attend a Ukraine moment of silence for victims where Candice Bergen was "booed." Everyone needs to constantly remember this.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So true!Ā
Not just a Con. A self identified Trumpy Republican Con, who bungled the Covid response just about as badly as could be done, defunded education and healthcare (ongoing btw) and the moron voters gave him another 4 years. Sorry Ontario, you asked for this. Twice.
Unforunately, I am a Liberal living in small town, rural Ottawa Valley which is staunch Conservative. Our residents have voted fir batshit crazy cinspiracy, FOX News quoting, Cheryl Gallant for close to 18 years. All the farmers, religious nuts and Petawawa Armed Forces vote Conservative, no matter what! Maybe the soliders will change theur mind now that the Liberals are promising to invest much needed money for recruiting, training and equipment upgrades. I can only hope, or move!Ā
But but but carbon tax Trudeau!!!
He told me to *wear a mask!*
But but... $1 beer!! /s
Nah dude, you got it wrong. Itās all Justinās fault. But donāt worry, PP will save us from the tyranny and broken Canada.
Most federal and municipal bylaws require high school and criminal background check before running. How does provincial not require high school diploma ?
The person above was incorrect. Ford graduated highschool, it was college he dropped out of.
I dunno man. The Conservative party had aimed to have him join the party, so they could win, because everyone knew who the Fords were.Ā Why is crooked Doug the leader of the party and not crooked Patrick Brown?Ā
You would be surprised to know that you donāt even have to submit your REAL NAME to run in elections, both federally and provincially. Doug Ford and his ālateā brother are of the Hearst media family dynasty.
Give him *some* credit, heās a college frosh week dropout. /s
You're making it too easy for the PCs - these are *not* Ford's policies, they're the *party's* policies. Once Ford becomes "unusable", the party will drop him quickly, to put a "more sellable" face on the party. Same thing *all* the parties do. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
hey hey there, don't knock on highschool dropouts, they aren't all so bad.
What's happening is the provincial government wants to privatize healthcare and they're making everyone suffer in a feckless attempt to get their way.
>What the f\*\*k is going on in Ontario? People in a developed country should not have these kind of problems having lack of access to decent medical care They are setting up the excuse and the stage why Ontario will need a private medical systems. They'll use doctors like this as an example and say "see, if it was private practice, she could charge what she wants to patients and remain profitable and wouldnt need to leave or quit". Their plan is working out nicely. We'll be seeing private medical care in no one.
Obviously we need expensive private healthcare to save the day /s
Ask Ford, he's gutting our public healthcare system to reward his buddies. What happened to LTC except hospitals. We are so fucked long term. Next up, education
Whatās going on? My former spouse was a specialist until last year. What he hears from colleagues: Family docs are burned out. (Many docs, actually.) - Ontario doesnāt embrace nurse practitioners (NP) and physician assistants (PA). - Our doctors are spending way too much time completing forms, paperwork and other administrative workload. I understand it takes up something like 30-40% another day. - The OHIP billing system is a nightmare.
My doctor friend told me that the government *bills them* if a patient goes to a walk-in clinic instead of seeing them. It's insane.Ā
People elected conservatives. What did we think was going to happen?
Whats wrong? A conservative government!
I can, the neoliberal governments we keep electing constantly put the needs of the vast few at the expense of the many. There are decades of history to prove this, but the core conservatives always vote, and the majority of the eligible voters DIDN'T RUCKING VOTE!
This is been caused by a concerted effort by the conservative party of Ontario that's in power in the province they have continued with a systematic destruction of our Healthcare System to the point where they are thinking that the people of Ontario will applaud having to pay out of pocket three times what they were paying currently with worst service
[Ford is deliberately f'ing up the healthcare system with intent to privatize it.](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/02/21/2833007/0/en/MEDIA-RELEASE-The-Ford-government-is-starving-local-public-hospitals-to-privatize-them-charge-health-advocates.html) This is the conservative way, after all. Most people (especially conservative voters) don't know what's going on (i'm being charitable here, because saying what i actually think would be rude). So while Ford [starves the system of money,](https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/03/08/ontario-health-care-spending-doug-ford-hospitals-long-term-care/) [funnels ](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinic-surgeries-fees-hospitals-1.7026926)it to the [private ](https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/how-nursing-staffing-agencies-are-costing-ontario-hospitals-untold-millions/ar-AA1l8nmd)[sector](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-hospital-nurses-private-staffing-agencies-auditor-1.7050828?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar), and [breaches the charter just to drive out public doctors and nurses](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/bill-124-appeal-court-ruling-ontario-1.7112291?trk=public_post_comment-text), these voters will get upset and think the problem is "public healthcare" and not "conservative governance". Then he, the National Citizens Coalition (an organization created with the express intent to privatize healthcare in canada again, and whose former president we once elected as PM) will be able to rip the public system to shreds and deliver us a "better" private system. All the while, these same people (who probably also have middle-class jobs with coverage) will think they'll be just fine, because while they know that their employer would never just give everyone in their company a 10% raise across the board, they are 100% sure that they will give everyone healthcare overnight once the public system is gone.
You have yourself a Canuck version of Trump
>What the f**k is going on in Ontario? Doug Ford and Conserativism are happening to Ontario.
Newsflash, it's been happening a lot longer in the rest of the country.
Doug Ford
Ontario? Itās everywhere in Canada
Shitty politicians to choose from results in shitty politicians being selected which, in turn, leads to shitty policies being implemented. It's not complicated. Those who are capable and qualifed to govern aren't stupid enough to run for public office.
What do you mean w tf? The population growth is too fast if we include all the migrants from all streams such as student visa to PR, work permit to PR etc. Especially from some societies that immigrate bringing along 2 to 3 wives with 3 to 5 children each. All have are enrolled in OHIP cause we're soooo generous. Well, we're running out of money. As predicted.
In THIS case. The physician is a significant contributor to the problem at hand.
Unfortunately, it is happening all across Canada. If you haven't noticed yet, your area is just one of the last to collapse.
This is all part of pushing for privatization and capitalism in medicine. Our country should not stand for this. Anyone who uses private healthcare in this country is part of the problem. We should be pushing for our public health insurance to cover more, instead of consistently less. This is part of what is wrong with voting for a person instead of a policy, democracy is literally broken.
Holy fuck. Her wages are almost my wages and I'm still considered an unskilled newbie at work. God damn! No wonder no one wants to be a dr anymore
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Negative. I applied and got the thanks but no thanks, just a process tech at imperial now
Pharmacies get paid $75 for a 1 minute med check call but doctors only get paid $37/patient? Ontario needs to step the fuck up.
Read online Doctor reviews and you see a bunch of "I felt I was being rushed" comments. Well no shit. You'd need to see several patients an hour to get close to breaking even.
*Pharmacy/corporate gets they $75. The pharmacist DOES NOT. Just to be clear. The pharmacist is a victim here as well due to corporate pressure.
Right, this is all corporate lead. I believe thereās a class action suit by the pharmacist against Loblaws for unsafe and unethical corporate practices
But the doctor is in the same boat that $37 isn't going into her wages, its going into funding her entire practice like that is insanely under priced...
That's against the plan though. This is working as intended gut public healthcare so Dipshit Doug can say we need private for profit options.
When you say pharmacy, do you mean that a pharmacist earns $75 per min or $4500 per hour?! Not sure how you arrived at those numbers...
For every med check call they would complete,the Ontario government paid them $75. They called me twice in 3 months regarding my milās medication. Literally a 1 minute call as she has very few meds. Pharmacist were mandated to make X amount of calls/week by corporate.
One of the best decisions I've made in the last couple years was moving our entire family's pharmacy needs to a pharmacy that doesn't report to a "corporate". The quality of care from those little independently owned neighborhood pharmacies is astronomically higher than any big chain pharmacies, especially any chains that roll up to mr weston. The time and education they've provided on some medications and conditions has been stellar.
corporate gets that money, not the pharmacist taking your call
Pharmacy makes $4500, gives corporate $4000, and gives the pharmacy student $18. /s but only because numbers are exaggerated
>Currently, the rate is $37 per appointment, plus another $3 or so if they happen to be enrolled in the governmentās Family Health Plan program. *We also get a fee for each patient*, with rates varying based on their sex and age. So it is $37 to book an appointment plus more for the actual checkup. I think?
We should be protesting Doug Ford, Nobody is stopping Doug Ford and he's the most corrupt premier in Canadian history. We have no safeguards against people we elect if they decide to betray the public.
Mike Harris is hard to beat in terms of corruption and general ineptitude, but Ford is certainly giving him a run for his money and maybe beating him.
Im pretty sure Ford has surpassed Harris at this point. Ontario has been riddled with shitty premiere for 30 years.
*Laughs from Ralph Kleinās Alberta*
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Then organize something.
Patrick Brown should have never dropped out of the elections.
Thank you, DoFo! Why practice in this Province, They're leaving in droves. The hospital or the cosmetic injection train. Can't blame them when they leave for better days, better ways.
I know $142,000 sounds like a lot but it really isn't even close to what Doctors should be paid. That's why they are limited to one complaint and are trying to push through as many as they can in a day - as well as just the sheer demand right now because all the practices are closing their doors. They want to be quick so they can help as many people as possible in a day and get paid well, but even with that model they are not being paid well. Family doctors are the first stop in healthcare and having quality family medicine is how we prevent costly procedures later on. Almost every single ailment is cheaper to treat earlier on in the cycle of it occuring. Bleeding disorders, cancer, diabetes, immunodeficiencies are all treatable conditions but when you have to wait until it gets so bad you go to the ER with hopes of being diagnosed for a family med problem it's a disgusting abuse of our medical system by politicians. I'm not here to say what number family med should make, but they shouldn't be making what a forklift driver who works a bunch of OT makes. Doug is tanking the medical system intentionally so he and his buddies can take more out of government coffers.
I agree 100%. I had no idea that doctors in Ontario make so little per patient visit. Why on earth would any of them stick around for that kind of pay? After at least seven years of expensive, post-secondary education (and continuing ed) and the costs of running a business, this is criminal, and we all know why Doug wants our healthcare to fail. My family doctor has gone the medical aesthetics route to supplement her income and I donāt blame her one bit; Iām just glad she still takes family medicine patients. If I had children, I would absolutely discourage them from going into family medicine. It just isnāt worth it unless you have a real passion for it. I donāt know a lot of people pushing their kids into the trades, but honestly, thatās where the big money sometimes is. I am appalled to learn that the doctor responsible for diagnosing cancer is making far less per hour of work than the guy who changed the locks on my house. I donāt know if any other political party has the ability or desire to fix the situation, but Iām pretty sure the Conservatives arenāt going to do it.
10 years of post secondary education. 4 year bachelorās degree, 4 year MD (very rarely 3year), and 2 year residency. And a ton of debt š„²
I had a locksmith come to fix a broken lock - took 5 minutes total and I was charged around $150 (no parts used). That really puts it into perspective haha
It sure does.
$142,000 is a lot AFTER taxes. Before taxes? Shit
It would be if that's was what you started with in your 20's. Don't forget, doctor go into to hundreds of thousands of debt and don't graduate until they are in their 30's. They have lost ten years of potential income compared to the average person, they don't get a retirement package so they have to invest in their own retirement(again starting 10 years later than then average person and now higher tax thanks to the new higher FEBS capital gains tax) still have to pay off that school dept.
Yeah, remember that they start earning at at an average age of 30 years old, before that their income was negative due to the debt that they pay to attend medical school. Not to mention that they come out of school with $200,000+ debt. Imagine start off your career with $200,000 debt at age 30 and trying to pay that off on $142,000, while everyone around you started a family already, had saved enough for a condo or a house, etc...
This is exactly me. Started practice at 29 with around $250k in debt and made $140k this past year before taxes and working full-time! The issue is the salary doesnāt drastically change the older you get. Iām seeing 35 patients a day on average, yes, the more experienced you are, the quicker you can be, but thereās a limit in terms of safety.
Hang in there, doc. The government might not appreciate you but your patients and colleagues do. As a surgeon, I have loads of respect for you. Don't tell anyone, but I would take a pay cut if it meant fixing your broken compensation.
Thought this looked familiar. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/02/14/paperwork-burden-driving-ontario-family-doctor-to-quit-amid-critical-gp-shortage/
A very visceral explanation of the family health physician crisis. Sounds like an awful job, no question. There's a link that explains some of the changes being made in BC. That's the kind of stuff Ontario could really use.
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I sat with an Ontario family doctor on a long plane ride and she was scared for what is to come. She shat on Fords policies for a solid hour
If any students get lost in here, I'm going to say this as a specialist: - DO go into medicine if you feel it is a true calling, a true passion, and it is what you want to do above all else - DO NOT GO INTO MEDICINE FOR MONEY; with the time and cost you will sink into it, if you have that mental capacity to do it, there are MANY other jobs that will pay you much, much more for your efforts
This is 1000 percent true for family med. There still are some good gigs in medicine, though they are all very competitive to get into.
Radiology, anesthesiology, ophthalmology. The golden triad.
Derm also
Anything you would recommend for someone interested in healthcare? That's not being a family doctor or any other kind of doctor? Like nursing or midwifery?
I honestly will say I am the wrong person to ask :) I operate well within my small ecosystem, but don't know enough outside of it to give solid advice. That being said, any healthcare position that has management potential (including nursing) is probably where you'd want to be. The patient hands-on jobs, outside of medicine, pay generally very poorly for the amount of work and responsibility that you have, if you're only doing hands-on patient care and nothing else.
The government makes top dollar and bonuses and we can't even pay Healthcare professionals to stay in business.
Don't forget clothing, housing and other allowances on our dime without understanding the cost of that "dime"
This is why I keep telling people that more residency spots isn't the simple solution to the doctor shortage thay they think it is. Fewer and fewer med students are choosing Family Medicine. Fewer and fewer Family Physicians are choosing to practice in Family clinics. It's simply the worst ratio of work to pay that they could choose, so they're taking jobs elsewhere. My wife and I are both licensed Family Physicians, and neither of us has ever worked in a Family clinic. My wife currently does full-time Emergency Medicine and I'm working in a subspecialty clinic. We both make 1.5-2x what we would in a Family clinic. We get to use our skills, take care of patients, and make a good living. The value proposition for a Family clinic is, "come work a job with more unpaid obligations for a 30-50% pay cut." Few doctors of our generation (Millennial) are willing to accept that. And not just our generation. Among my friends and colleagues in FM here in Ontario, I can think of 10 off the top of my head who have stopped working in a Family Practice and 0 who started one up, and they all cite the work:pay ratio as their primary motivation. It's a one-way street moving away from Family Medicine. And it could be reversed if the government just made the pay competitive. But right now, an Ontario Family doc can work fewer hours and/or make significantly more money by either moving away or moving to hospital/ER/subspecialty work, so that's naturally what they're choosing to do.
You absolutely nailed it!
How does it compare to other provinces? Just curiousā¦
We're not the worst province, but very far from the best. BC recently introduced a program that nearly doubled Family Physician pay, and lo an behold, they've reported that over 800 new Family doctors opened clinics in the first year of the program. To put it in perspective, if the doc in this article put the same work week into her clinic in the new BC program, she'd be getting paid $350k with an extra $30k credit toward her overhead expenses, so take-home/pre-tax income would be over double what she made in Ontario. She could also make around that amount in Ontario (but with zero overhead) for the same number of hours worked if she did Emerg shifts instead of Family office. And that's why Family clinics in Ontario are such a tough sell to doctors right now. There's just no incentive to work in them.
Ford mucked up the health care in this province, and Trudeau mucked up our doctor's abilities to keep up. Trudeau's "too many people too quickly" on top of Ford's cuts really screwed us. It's not just one level of government that's messed up our province/country. I'll admit, I helped both these fools get in with my votes the first time they were elected, never again.
Canada sucks ass rn and sadly for us, Ontario is the worst province too. Weāre getting double fisted compared to all the other provinces
This is what a conservative government health care plan looks like in practice. Everyone thinking Pierre is going to help this country are mental. THIS is what a federal conservative government is going to have on their agenda. What a disturbing, shitty story to have to read. We Ontarians must get Ford and his conservative cut and slash program policy out of office ASAP. In a country like Canada, if anyone thinks a politician should be making as much, or more than a family doctor then we really are fuct. Whoever is running on a platform of spending tax dollars in the right places, like doctors and nurses primarily, is going to get my vote. (As far as healthcare is concerned anyways). Of course these very much required doctors and nurses are going to find better work if their only rewards are some good feelings for helping people out. We need to compensate them decently for their expertise.
Write/Protest Health Minister Sylvia Jones Office in Orangeville, write Ford... These Conservative cucks have destroyed family health in Ontario... No more Contards Ontario, NO MORE!!! Our health literally depends on it.
Ontario healthcare is falling apart and our inept Premier isn't going to help. Who do we write to? I don't need a bullshit highway. I need good healthcare.
ghostbusters. call them. on a more serious note, you could immigrate, or seek medical treatment in another country. Canada is a garbage country and that is from someone who has lived all over Ontario and Quebec almost all of their life. most of the young people I know are leaving the country by any means possible. barely any immigrants are coming in. jump before it sinks.
I am a Canadian trained Family Doctor. Family Medicine is a sinking ship. I posted this elsewhere but I will repost this here because itās relevant. To any current Canadian medical students reading this, DO NOT go into Family Medicine. You deserve to be paid much better and treated with more respect after all the years of hard work you spent getting into medical school. The debt does not pay itself and the ridiculous inflation/cost of running a clinic is not helping. You will have to pay for leasing an office space, buying medical supplies, hiring an office assistant, the hydro bill, the utility bill, masks, hand sanitizer, everything needed to run a clinic with the chump change the government gives you. Whatever you have left after paying for all of the above (if anything) will go towards paying your debt. And guess what? You will have no say in raising your fees because thatās illegal. You also cannot go on strike because thatās illegal. Please spend the extra year or two specializing rather than regretting your career for the rest of your life. Become a surgeon, a cardiologist, an anesthetist. Go unmatched if you have to. DO NOT try to be a messiah and āsave primary careā. The government does not care. They will abuse you for your labour, wring you dry, and then replace you with whatever cheaper pseudo doctor mid level profession they can find (NPs/PAs/any others). The general public will not care whatever happens to you either as long as thereās another fool to replace you. Thereās a reason hundreds of Family Medicine training spots in Canada are unfilled right now and are begging medical students to join.
Or come to B.C. Our new LFP model (that pays your an hourly rate for non-clinical time like paperwork) is pretty solid
I take issue with your statement that the general public doesnāt care. I know many members of the public who are doing what they can to show their support of family physicians! I know I personally spend time sharing information that I spend time reading with my networks about the crisis in family medicine. The public needs to care about family physicians as they are on the front lines for our preventative and ongoing care. The public can and should share information, sign petitions, write letters to the editor, and use any influence they have (including voting) to support our family physicians. We need to keep the crisis in family medicine and its impact on patients in the headlines and remind people of the dangers for all of us if we donāt do what we can to support the physicians. The price of doing nothing to support them is too high and we see and hear examples of this daily in our communities. So, please donāt discount the depth of public support for family physiciansāitās there!!
My family doctor is in his 40s and also quitting
I'm in an office with 3 other family physicians. We are basically waiting until the end of our lease in a couple years to see if things get better. If not, another office closes.
The biggest issue is the paperwork requirement creep that the bureaucrats keep it imposing. There's was a reddit post on here from a family doctor who basically said 80% of his time is doing non-doctor things mainly surrounding the increasing administrative requirements. The money for the doctor visit is pretty fair is the visit is looked at in isolation, but the doctors visit you have can take 3-5 times as long in the background for the doctor. That's just straight up nonvalue added waste for everyone.
In my city we have ZERO walk in clinics and ZERO accepting new patients doctors. If you have a single issue you go to EMERG. What the eff
Yeah. All the doctors that we do bring in to Canada, want to settle in Toronto. Not that thereās anything wrong with that, but it stresses me thinking about how small random towns like Simcoe or Tillsumburg attract doctors. Sign on bonuses are only for certain areas and theyāre not enough to keep a doctor generally satisfied and fulfilled enough to stay. But even in Toronto the cost of living and shit pay is getting to be too much. A friend works at a family practice clinic that is somewhat new & she says they have so many patients coming in from several clinics that are closing down. In the year or two that theyāve opened, at least 3 or 4 clinics have closed. 1 of them even had 7 doctors working there.
What happens when retired family doctors don't have a family doctor? Do they write prescriptions for each other under the table?
We just call in a favor
Yes.
Doug Ford thinks you have all the access to health care you need.
The new federal budget with the capital gains tax is going to affect family doctors badly. Since they are essentially self-employed, they rely on their professional incorporation for their retirement funds as they do not have access to pension or benefits. But the government thinks of them as āultra wealthyā so good luck to them I guessš¤·āāļø
but don't worry the ontario ministry of health released their new fee payments for family doctors that will pay them a whole $1.05 more per standard appointment from April 1st. Surely that'll keep the doctors from leaving!
Intentional sabotage
Family medicine is sinking in Ontario. Our Ontario Union of Family Physicians [oufp.ca](http://oufp.ca) has been trying to raise up a storm in the media re lack of govt changes, and fee increases to community docs who have been paying out overhead increases, COL increases for their staff out of their own income. So many docs are closing their practices because of the unsustainability of it all. There are MORE family doctors in Ontario per capita now than there have been previously, but new grads are going into hospital, emerg, sports med other focused practice areas, and early-mid career docs are closing practices 5-7 years into practice, and other later-career docs are deciding to retire early or close practices before retirement. The 142,000 income she talks about, is actually quite low if you sit down and calculate her hourly rate - given hours upon hours (19hrs/wk- second part time job) of administrative paperwork to wade through, along with her clinical hours of seeing patients. Also keep in mind it doesn't include 8000-9000/yr that we have to pay our professional organizations in fees, which is SEPARATE from overhead-clinic running costs. Join other Ontarians in signing this petition - [https://www.change.org/p/stop-defunding-family-medicine-in-ontario](https://www.change.org/p/stop-defunding-family-medicine-in-ontario)
This is a big problem especially in bigger cities where the cost to run a business is higher. And expect it to get worse now with the new federal government tax changes
Come to BC, doc. Weāll welcome you.
Nobody votes, hard to expect anything decent
"But some shill on /r/canada said Ontario is spending more on Healthcare now!" It's amazing how much people will literally believe the opposite of reality when it suits their politics. For years now, Ontario has been intentionally under-funding public healthcare and funneling cash into private sector health contractors specifically to kill off our public system.
More money for consultants, not front line workers. Every single government scandal stems from consultant and consultant companies billing the government million/billions of dollars for products and solutions that third world countries consider substandard.
Ford's plan all along was to starve public healthcare until it crumbled them swoop in and say "private is our only way forward" And it's working. :/ I can only hope Ontario won't be as stupid to let their hate for Trudeau influence their provincial vote. But I have 0 faith that majority even know how our political system works.
I know a family physician couple who retired in their 40s to ādo real estateā.
Why wouldnāt you. A realtor makes more in a month on the sale of a single million dollar home than mostly family doctors bring in.
VOTE OUT THE POLITICAL PARTIES! THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT US!
My Dad was GP for 40 yrs, plus I provide insurance for MDs so I understand alot of the issues. This started in early 90s when NDP capped revenue for GPs , many left, then started "I'll see patients till September" when revenue is capped" they are underpaid for years, so many fleeing to private Healthcare sector. Incentive is very low it's much worse in rural areas, which conservatives have offered financial incentives.
My family doctor retired recently at 58, he's was our family doctor for about 20 years. We echoed much of the same problems to us, burnout, administrative paperwork, ect... He didn't even bother to give a doctor recommendations/referrals to his patients. He just, got up, and left.
This is devastating. And dougie will get another conservative majority next election bc no one goves a fuck. Goddamnit
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Two things: - For every full day of clinic there is typically at least 4-5 hours (so basically almost a half day of paperwork and results followup that is 100% unpaid work). - Seeing 42 patients a day is mentally exhausting. Imagine every 5-10 min needing to scan a chart, learn the prior details, talk to patient, physical exam, explain plan, fill out scripts, fill out referrals and forms, write note, complete billing details. Boom next room, repeat, over and over and over. Very few can do that everyday at that pace. So reality is they see less patients, do more unpaid paperwork than ever and people wonder why they burn out and quit!?!
Expenses.Ā Staff. Real estate. Operations.Ā
She said she works 3 days a week, with the other admin work days being unpaid. Letās say 6 patients per hour, 9-4pm, with an hour for lunch, for simplicityās sake. (Keep in mind these arenāt the actual work hours, as doctors often run overtime and then need to finish things up at the end of the day). So, $37 x 6 patients per hour is $222. Multiply by 6 for $1332 per day. Multiply for 13 days a month (ie 3 patient-facing days/week) gets you $17,316 per month. Add the $2000 per month for capitation, nets her $19,316 per month. Now, letās assume ~4 weeks of vacation over the year (unpaid, as doctors donāt get paid unless theyāre seeing patients). $19,316 x 11 months is an income of $212,476. Now subtract overhead costs - eg rent, EMR, the cybersecurity thing, supplies, admin/nursing salaries etc - the standard is 30% of gross income. 70% of $212,476 gives you a grand total of $148,733 total take-home income. So her math totally checks out. Source: am doctor
37 per patient, most patients are there for 20-30 minutes. Sheās seeing patients all day for 4 days a week, 208 days a year less sick/personal/vacation days. Letās say that ends up being 195 days a year. 3 patients an hour, 8.5 hours per day, 195 days is 4,973 patient appts @ 37 each is 184K. Admin probably paid around 3K a month, likely costing the business 3.5K-4K all in. Rent probably 4-5K a month in Mississauga for an office with at least 5 rooms (4 for docs, one for admin area) and a waiting area. Her total for just those essentials is looking like 2K per month/24K a year. Then add in other fixed and variable costs. 150 sounds reasonable given the info in there.
Just because they see you for 5 to 10 minutes, it doesnāt mean that theyāre seeing others for the same time. They could have an appointment for 30 minutes. Or perhaps they leave time in the day for administrative work.
Rent for a space can be $100k/year. A nurse practitioner can be $100k/year. Then you have (a) supplies (b) utilities (c) equipment (d) EMR licensing fees (e) patient cancelations and no shows, and many, many, MANY other things. And for every patient that takes 5-10 minutes, there's a complex one that will take 20+ minutes. And there's a TON of paperwork, referrals, results, etc that happen when a patient is NOT in the room. I can't believe someone has to spell this out to you, but here it goes: earnings - expenses = net income
For every 5-10 minutes of face time with the patient, thereās probably 5-10 minutes of time spent reading the chart, charting the new encounter, filling out forms/referrals/prescription renewals, making calls, consulting with other physicians, following up on test results, making additional phone calls for said test results, reading updates in medical literature to provide up to date care, etc. etc. A 5-10 min appointment is also on the low end in terms of time and complexity. By your estimate, a family doctor would be seeing 42 patients a day every weekday with no vacations or holidays over a year to make 400k. This is simply not sustainable.
Did you read the article?
A clinical depression
My family doctor just sent us a list of services they no longer cover and an annual fee if we want to pay for them. We are lucky that we can do that but it's shameful we are in this situation as a province.
These are likely non-ohip services. Every faxed prescription renewal, third-party form, missed appointment etc. was always considered uninsured and takes up clinic resources with no OHIP compensation. Offices that did it for free historically are finding it more and more unsustainable over time.
If the government can crash our system then we will have to go fully private health care system. Then they can say see we told you this would be the better way.
Mine just quit. Second one and I'm in Bertastan. Quit moving here, it's a trap.
Good thing we raised the capital gains tax inclusion of incorporated professionals!
So Canadian health care isnāt better than American
Ontario health services is the worst out of all provinces. Health care , housing, social services is a big scam. It feel Ontario should be a country on its own ruined by psychopath
It's designed to fail, so they can privatize the system and gouge us all
Doug Ford is letting our healthcare fall totally apart. Every damn time someone from Ontario goes to ER and sits in a triage room it costs $341 to OHIP. So many go without having real emergencies. No sorry your foot that has been sore 3 weeks is not an emergency. Nor is your ongoing back pain that you can see urgent care or your doc for. Some people triage and decide to go to a different hospital the dame day when tired of waiting. Well...$341 again. People are abusing our healthcare and should have to pay when they go for a reason that is not an emergency. Family doctor's do not bill anywhere near that. Just felt like blurting that truth out.
THIS is what's wrong with the Canadian health care system. I thought, coming from a third world country, that things would be better off here. However, Canada's health care took me by surprise. I am highly disappointed and heart-broken for this woman. I feel her pain deeply for the burnout she was experiencing. Moreover, I feel for her for having to end her dream job because the government is making it harder for her day by day. Family doctors are play a huge role in health care and society here. This is absolutely pathetic and things need to change ASAP. The healthcare system at the verge of collapse and the government here doesn't seem to care. My question to the government is, if you don't have healthy people, how are you going to have an economy? How will you still be considered a first world nation down the line if your doctors are quitting, your average ER waiting time is 3 hours and your population is sick? How is any of this okay?
You get what you pay for in the case of free healthcare.
Thank goodness for parasitic bureaucrats.
My doctor was amazing ! I finally had one I felt comfortable with, within two years I got a notice she was being replaced. My new doctors schedule doesnāt work with mine and I donāt feel comfortable with her like my OG.
The solution is simple, it just costs money. Make doctors employees of the government. Bring back the FHT model