|
Back to Media
Releases
Doctors group accuses province of intimidation
MDs suspected of overbilling OHIP Auditing
process called extortion
THERESA BOYLE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
TORONTO STAR
The provincial government has "extorted" $25 million from
Ontario doctors wrongly accused of overbilling the public
health insurance plan, an association representing family
physicians alleges.
"Ontario's physicians are being demoralized
and victimized by a government-sponsored intimidation and extortion
process labelled an audit mechanism," Tracey Tremayne-Lloyd,
a lawyer representing the Coalition of Family Physicians of
Ontario, told a news conference yesterday.
The coalition claims the province since
1998 has been enforcing a provision under the Health Insurance
Act that allows it to go after doctors alleged to have overbilled
OHIP.
The coalition charges that there is no
presumption of innocence in the proceedings because doctors
are required to pay back any alleged overbillings even before
they can appeal their cases. As well, doctors can also be forced
to repay retroactive interest on amounts owing and be forced
to pick up the cost of government investigations.
Some 400 physicians have been forced to
pay back some $25million in alleged overbillings since 1998,
Tremayne-Lloyd said.
"They are suffering from anxiety, humiliation
and depression," said Dr. Douglas Mark, president of the coalition.
Patients suffer as a result, he said, because
doctors are choosing to curtail their practices rather than
leave themselves vulnerable to audits.
"Most have altered their practices in ways
that are not at all beneficial for their patients," he said,
referring to the 400 doctors who have already been subject to
investigations and fear the government will target them again.
"Some have quit medicine altogether."
Health Minister Tony Clement yesterday
defended the practice, arguing it's the government's duty to
ensure that taxpayer dollars are properly spent.
"I don't think we make any apologies on
behalf of taxpayers to review the accounts of medical professionals
who are billing the system. I think it's part of our responsibility
to citizens to make sure that ... overbilling is not taking
place," he said.
Clement said most of the doctors in question
are being investigated by a committee of the College of Physicians
and Surgeons of Ontario rather than a special OPP health fraud
squad because it's believed their overbillings are a result
of administrative error, not criminal intent.
"In many cases, there might be some confusion
about billing codes and some things that don't have a ... motive,
so overbilling has occurred. ... It's simply an act of omission
rather than commission," he said.
Dr. Cesar Garcia-Pan, a Toronto family
physician, received a bill for $30,000 from the province earlier
this year, along with an allegation he had overbilled OHIP that
much.
He said his practice was flagged because
of the high volume of patients he sees.
But he explained his patient caseload is
high because he works up to 14 hours a day, tending to many
non-English speaking patients.
"I'm busy. I speak four languages ... Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian and English," he said.
"You feel disbelief and guilt."
Back to Media
Releases
|
