It’s no secret that Alberta medical doctors proceed to wrestle with hovering affected person numbers and well timed administrative work, however one doctor is talking out towards a provincial initiative aimed toward addressing the difficulty.
Dr. Stephanie Frigon is a doctor in Westlock, Alberta and says many rural medical doctors like herself are being left at nighttime because of the province’s Panel Administration Assist System (PMPS) being prorated and primarily based on the full variety of sufferers they help.
This system launched in October goals to offer medical doctors with money for sources, akin to workers and know-how, to cut back their period of time spent on administrative duties, in line with the Alberta Medical Affiliation (AMA). It permits medical doctors with 500 or extra sufferers to obtain as much as $10,000 a 12 months.
Frigon says she technically has 478 sufferers, regardless of the clinic she works at caring for almost 600, and argues the PMPS affected person threshold is way too excessive, and can really do the other of what it goals to do.
“I believe it’s disincentivizing individuals from persevering with to do that work,” she says. “As a result of it’s another factor that they didn’t qualify for and the grass appears greener on the opposite aspect.”
She says she’s heard of some physicians who break up their care between each city and rural communities, and despite the fact that they’ve large workloads, they’ll’t profit from this system since they don’t technically have a panel dimension of 500 or extra.
“We’ve acquired a brand new doctor in our clinic who began final fall, and he’s progressively been build up his affected person panel,” says Frigon. “He works each single day. He solely has 350 sufferers.”
She is looking on the province to broaden this system and scale back the affected person threshold with a purpose to help the medical doctors who’re working simply as exhausting, regardless of having a smaller panel dimension.
AMA president Dr. Paul Parks agrees, saying the province wants to cut back the requirement, particularly as burnout continues to push many medical doctors to the brink of quitting.
“This was a authorities program that they carried out and didn’t actually take our enter on it,” says Parks. “It’s an arbitrary cutoff and leaves out a substantial variety of medical doctors that most likely ought to qualify for it.”
CityNews has reached out to the Ministry of Well being for remark.
