Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

Alberta will approve doctor pay deal after wrapping up other negotiations, premier says

Oct 10, 2024 | 7:20 PM

Premier Danielle Smith said Thursday her government will sign off on a new funding structure for family doctors after it concludes several outstanding union negotiations, marking another delay for a pay deal advocates say is desperately needed.

The United Conservative government collaborated with the non-profit Alberta Medical Association to create the Physician Comprehensive Care Model that has awaited approval from the government since April.

The agreement expands on the fee for service compensation program, provides funding based on clinic size and capacity and pays doctors for administrative work done behind the scenes.

Smith revealed Wednesday night during a town hall the deal would be announced “in the coming weeks” as part of the province’s effort to prop up an overburdened health care system.

Dr. Paul Parks, who as president of the medical association helped to negotiate pay deal, said he doesn’t know why the health minister has not implemented the plan.

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“What is the hold up?” he asked, saying its a question he posed many times this year without an answer.

For her part, Smith referenced the collective agreement the province signed with AMA doctors in 2022 that provided more funding and said her government is working on new agreements with other employee groups who haven’t received an increase in years.

“So I would just ask for everybody to be respectful of the process,” Smith told reporters after a business networking event in Medicine Hat on Thursday.

“We’ve got six or seven union contracts that have come up at the same time. We have to make sure that we’re treating everybody fairly,” she added.

“As we start seeing some movement at the bargaining table and are able to hopefully announce some settlements, then we’ll be able to get to the doctors’ agreement.”

The AMA proposed the compensation model to the Alberta government in December 2023. Months later, in April 2024, it was completed, according to AMA president Dr. Shelley Duggan.

Duggan said she was given Aug. 2 as the date when the province would implement the program, but it was cancelled.

Doctors are growing weary of the long wait, Parks said.

“They’ve announced so many times…and until they actually implement it now, it’s just words,” he told CHAT News in an interview.

“And unfortunately, I think so many colleagues now have lost hope.”

Implementation of the new model has only been waiting on approval from Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, association president Duggan said Wednesday.

“We, of course, have been planning for it to be rolled out,” Duggan told CHAT News on Wednesday before Smith’s town hall.

“We were quite hopeful it would be rolling out as of January, and so our machinery in the background is getting ready for that,” she added.

Smith at the town hall said that, of the 11,700 doctors in the province, 5,500 are classified as family physicians but only about 2,500 have practices.

“So we’re seeing that we have a very large pool of doctors but a very small number that are providing primary care,” Smith said, saying the new funding model aims to entice more doctors to set up shop.

The province is also granting nurse practitioners — who are able to carry out many of the same tasks as a family physician — the ability to open clinics.

Smith said 50 nurse practitioners are in the process of getting approval from the Alberta health ministry to start practising.

Alberta pharmacists have had their role expanded “more than anywhere else in the country” to help with taking the burden off clinics and hospital emergency rooms.

“We’re trying to give every health professional an expanded scope of practice,” Smith said.

“We want to make that every person is attached to a valid practitioner because that should be the point of entry when you’re sick,” she added.

“What we’re finding is when we don’t have those options, the first point of entry is a hospital emergency room and that’s why our hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed.”

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