{"id":317033,"date":"2025-11-30T20:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T20:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/317033\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T20:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T20:14:08","slug":"albertas-move-to-open-private-billing-unlikely-to-increase-capacity-physicians-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/317033\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta\u2019s move to open private billing unlikely to increase capacity, physicians say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Resources in the public system are likely to shift toward care paid for out of pocket, physician says.Todd Korol\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s proposal to open up private billing for surgery could be lucrative for some providers, but it is unlikely to create much new capacity in the system, according to physicians who study the province\u2019s health work force.<\/p>\n

The provincial government introduced a bill in late November that would allow surgeons to bill both public insurance plans and patients directly<\/a>. The United Conservative Party government asserts the change will create new business opportunities that help attract physicians to the province and increase available services. <\/p>\n

This would be a new model in Canada. Generally, provincial and federal law dictates that doctors can only bill publicly or privately, but not both at the same time. Most doctors choose to operate only in the public system. <\/p>\n

There are, however, many loopholes. The Canada Health Act\u2019s stipulations are only for \u201cmedically necessary\u201d services and not elective surgeries. As well, physicians are generally allowed to either travel to another province and bill privately there, or have out-of-province patients travel to them.<\/p>\n

Alberta defends public-private health care model as experts say it could violate Canada Health Act<\/a><\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s plan to allow in-province physicians to privately bill in-province patients could be lucrative for some providers, according to Stephen Kwan, a Lethbridge-based orthopedic surgeon and president of the Alberta Orthopaedic Society. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exceedingly attractive if you get operating time in both the public as well as private systems,\u201d Dr. Kwan said.<\/p>\n

Fees are unregulated and patients may pay tens of thousands of dollars for an operation.<\/p>\n

Maddison McKee, spokesperson for Alberta Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services Adriana LaGrange, said the government believes surgeons will perform more surgeries if they have the option of billing privately. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome Alberta-registered physicians, particularly orthopedic surgeons, currently leave the public system to perform private surgeries in other provinces; allowing dual practice here encourages them to stay, contributing to the public system while also providing private care at home,\u201d she said in an e-mail. <\/p>\n

But Dr. Kwan cautioned there are still serious resource constraints, particularly among other health care professionals who are essential to operations. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve seen through my 30 years is that there have been periods where we\u2019ve lost all anesthesia and nursing and we\u2019ve been only able to operate once per week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Picard: Allowing doctors to practise in both public and private systems solves what exactly?<\/a><\/p>\n

Those limited resources mean that overall capacity in the system is unlikely to grow, according to Braden Manns, a physician at the University of Calgary who has studied the province\u2019s workforce challenges. <\/p>\n

Instead what is likely to happen, Dr. Manns said, is that resources in the public system are likely to shift toward care paid for out of pocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that are forced to stay in the public system, those people who need the supports of a hospital, those people who can\u2019t afford to pay that \u2013 they\u2019re going to wait longer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Editorial Board: Alberta\u2019s (welcome) healthcare heresy<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms. McKee, the minister\u2019s spokesperson, said the government has been working to recruit more physicians to the province. She pointed to registration numbers that showed the number of physicians increased by 643 people this year to 12,769, as of Sept. 30. <\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, supply is tight, but the health workforce and the overall health system constantly expands,\u201d she said in an e-mail.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The government has been working to recruit more physicians to the province, a spokesperson says.Todd Korol\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Dr. Manns said that increase is in line with population growth in the province. He also said the number of registrations may not match the number of practicing physicians in Alberta because some doctors leave the province, but maintain their registration with the college in case they ever decide to return.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kwan said his organization is concerned that any new surgeons coming into the province will only stay temporarily.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with itinerant surgeons is that they come, they operate, they leave,\u201d he said. That leaves any follow-up work, including complications, to the surgeons who stay there permanently.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kwan said Alberta surgeons are already feeling strain from on-call shifts. He pointed to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, which last year had to limit surgical hours<\/a> because of a dearth of on-call availability among surgeons.<\/p>\n

He said his organization is suggesting itinerant surgeons should also provide call coverage for hospitals. <\/p>\n

David Urbach, the head of the department of surgery at Women\u2019s College Hospital in Toronto, who has studied the growth of private health services in Canada, said most opportunities for private providers have been in specialties such as cataract surgery or orthopedic surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really like niche areas of practice where there are these markets that have developed, where you can develop profitable opportunities to provide those select services,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said that means the number of physicians who would be most enticed by Alberta\u2019s offer is likely to be limited. <\/p>\n

\u201cSurgeons are not that mobile, and they\u2019re unlikely to just pick up and move just for an opportunity to work in a private environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Resources in the public system are likely to shift toward care paid for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,6347],"class_list":{"0":"post-317033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-ne-i"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}