News from the Ontario Health Coalition
Toronto, Ontario, March 25,2014 – Six university student researchers spent the last month working with the Ontario Health Coalition calling through 135 private clinics and hospitals in Ontario to find out whether they are charging patients unlawful fees on top of billing OHIP for medically necessary services.
Their findings, released today in a report, “For Health or for Wealth?: The evidence regarding user fees and private clinics in Ontario” show that a significant number of private clinics are both billing OHIP and charging patients fees on top ranging from $50 – $3,500 or more.
The coalition warns that the Ontario government’s new plan to cut medical services from local public hospitals and contract them out to private clinics will result in more user fees for patients unless it is stopped. This is a threat to single-tier Medicare and the fundamental principle of the Canadian Health system that access to care should be based on medical need, not wealth.
Key Findings
- Patients are being charged user fees ranging from up to $3,500 or more for cataract surgeries, colonoscopies and access to physicians.
- Clinics are engaging in outright violations of the Canada Health Act by charging Ontario residents thousands of dollars for cataract surgeries. These are covered by OHIP and by the prohibition on user fees and extra-billing of patients contained in both Ontario law and the Canada Health Act, and they pay for these services through their taxes. They should not be subject to additional fees to access care.
- Researchers found clinics telling patients that they must pay illegal charges such as $50 mandatory “administrative fees” for such things as a snack and patient records.
- A very high proportion of cataract clinics charge patients hundreds or even thousands of dollars for medically unnecessary tests and procedures that they co-mingle with the medically-necessary cataract surgery in order to maximize their profits and get around prohibitions on charging patients user fees and extra-billing. The mark ups on these tests and procedures are very high, and the information given to patients about their efficacy and medical need was extremely manipulative in many cases.
- Information given to patients in many clinics is biased towards convincing them to buy unnecessary tests and procedures.
- We found instances of physician self-referral, where staff promoted the private clinic with its extra fees and unnecessary tests and downplayed the availability of free (OHIP-covered) services in local hospitals.
- Patients are confused about what is needed and what is not, and why services are being charged to them.
“We are frustrated that private clinics are manipulating patients into buying medically unnecessary services and downplaying their OHIP-covered services,” said Hanaa Ahsan, a University of Toronto Health Policy student who worked with the Ontario Health Coalition on this report. “This is undermining the Canada Health Act and our public health care system.
“Our evidence shows that the Minister of Health is not taking enough action to uphold Ontario’s and Canada’s Medicare laws,” noted Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “User charges, particularly in cataract surgery clinics, are more widespread and higher than ever. Not only has the government not taken firm action on the unethical behavior of these clinics, now they are planning to expand the private clinics sector in which most of the violations of the Canada Health Act are taking place. This is a threat to single-tier Medicare in our province and it must be stopped.”
To learn more about the Ontario Health Coalition and its advocacy for quality and accessible publicly funded health services across the province visit www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca .
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Niagara At Large 
This story seems to indicate that the Ontario Liberal Government is not doing what they are elected and hired to do!
What’s New?
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As usual, even as supposed helping professions, the main aim is profit. And that is the predominant issue with for-profit medicine. The focus is profit instead of patient. From medications to tests and kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies, the public is being duped into believing it’s good for them. And what patient would know better since they are totally at the mercy of the medical practitioners.
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The move to Health Care Privatization began in earnest under the HARRIS/HUDAK REIGN of Terror and has continued to increase under the McGuinty corrupt government. The venerated Victorian Order of Nurses was literally eliminated during the reign of Liberal Health Minister, Smitherman as he put the service up for tender meaning of course that quality was lost to the bottom line on a private firms profit and loss statement and collusion was in the works.
The Liberal Health Ministers that followed were even less concerned about the health of the Citizens of this province as they, following the lead of Conservative Mike Harris and his goon squad, set up layers of un-needed governance to divert blame, In doing this they were able to nullify “any” opposition to their privatization agenda BUT I feel that this pending move by the Liberals will be the death blow that completely eliminates or Health Care as Tommy Douglas visioned it to be.
When the NDP topples this Liberal Government the citizens of Ontario totally “Brain Washed” by the corporate media and their corporate masters will spend hundreds of millions of dollars (American and Canadian) to put Hudak and his gestapo into the Drivers seat to totally corrupt this province. If you trust these mad Dog Tories you are
just as sick as they are and you are cutting your own ego gloating throats. All I can say is God “HELP” Ontario and the sane peoples, to hell with the rest for they will have made their own beds.
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