Physicians are very limited in how they can practice in this country. The Canada Health Act, and BC's Medicare Protection Act limit physicians to either accepting the terms of these acts, or totally opting out of medicare and billing patients privately. In the latter case, patients would be responsible for obtaining reimbursement of their medical expenses through MSP.

The medical system, as it exists in Canada today, is one of the worst in the world with respect to legal restrictions placed on physicians (only other countries that share Canada's medical system model are Cuba and North Korea) and this likely explains why so many Canadian physicians are ready to leave for the US, despite the nightmarish billing system that exists in the US. The one advantage of the Canadian system over the US system is that billing MSP for physician services provided is far far simpler here than in the US.

Until this dispute with the BC government began, I wasn't that concerned about the financial side of medicine as my primary goal was to provide good medical care. Now that I have been forced to look at the issues as a result of this dispute, I find myself in the position of having to decide whether I take a significant financial penalty by providing what I consider to be good quality medical care, or I provide merely the minimum of medical care and double my income. Such are the distortions inherent in socialized medicine where a walkin clinic physician gets paid the same for a 30 second office visit as a physician who spends 20 minutes with a patient.

Opting out of medicare is one of the future directions that I am considering. Further details on anticipated charges for medical services will be available once I have discussed this matter with my accountant. To some extent what happens in the future will be determined by whether or not any resolution of the dispute between BC physicians and BC Lieberal government occurs. Further details about direction that my practice will take will be posted at that time.

OptOut1 27-May-2002