To All Ontario Family Physicians                                            May 3, 2006.

GOVERNMENT TO PUT
“Hands in Our Pockets”...AGAIN!

Proposed Changes to PHIPA Bad News for Doctors

Dear Colleague,

The Coalition of Family Physicians of Ontario has serious concerns regarding proposed amendments to the Personal Health Information Protection Act 2004 (PHIPA).

The Minister of Health and Long-Term Care is proposing a drastic reduction on fees you can charge for the provision of copies of medical records. Put in more plain terms, when a patient asks for a copy of their medical record for any purpose, you will be expected to do the following:

• Clarify request for the record
• Provide an estimate of the fee
• Review the record not more than 15 minutes to determine if the record contains personal information to which access may be refused
• Prepare a response letter
• Organize the record for proper photocopying and transmission
• Package the documents
• Mail by Canada post, fax or send electronically
• Supervise the individual's examination of the medical record for up to 15 minutes.
• The maximum fee for any or all of these services shall not exceed $30.00 .

We interpret the document to mean $30 for the first 20 pages of the medical record and 25 ¢ per page afterwards. This fee structure ignores the reality of the increasing costs of running a family practice in this province.

The position of the COFP is that physicians are over-regulated. We believe that the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) should be not engaged in regulating the prices for services that they do not pay for, whether the fees that they propose are reasonable or not. All of us take into account our patients' financial situations as best we can.

Further, the COFP believes that patients already have an avenue of significant redress if they feel they are being unreasonably overcharged by physicians, by making a complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

This attempt by the MOHLTC to micro-manage health care opens up the thin edge of the wedge in the regulation of all fees that physicians earn, to include those not paid for by OHIP. We are concerned that it is the Minister's intent to eventually regulate the cost of Block fees in an attempt to discourage private medical billing and control Family Medicine in its entirety.

We need your support NOW! Tell us how you feel about this serious and significant infringement on our rights. We will take your concerns to the government and let them know in no uncertain terms that this kind of micro-management will not be tolerated.

Sincerely,

Douglas Mark MD, President

and the Board of the Coalition of Family Physicians of Ontario

P.S. Don't forget to come to our June 3, 2006 Conference, “Sustaining Health and Healthcare – Bold New Horizons,” at the Westin Prince Hotel in Toronto. Watch your mail for more details or go to our Web site at www.cofp.com and register today!

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