Saskatchewan announces new payment model for family physicians

A new form of payment has been unveiled by the province of Saskatchewan to retain and recruit family physicians.

The model is a blended payment method offering two streams of remuneration. Family physicians will be given a base payment for standard services provided based on the age, gender and complexity of each patient. Then they will also be compensated for extra services not part of those standard services.

“I think this is going to help our healthcare in solidifying physicians in our province and bringing new physicians in,” said Minister of Health Paul Merriman.

Currently, a physician's payment depends solely on the number of services provided.

“This is going to improve overall patient care, as the physicians have said, this is going to lower wait times,” said Merriman.

In the past 18 months, 170 physicians have been recruited to work in the province. Other provinces have rolled out similar payment models, which the Ministry says it will learn from. The province hopes the method will encourage doctors considering retiring to continue working a little longer. 

Saskatchewan Medical Association president, Dr. John Gjevre, says it’s time for a new payment model for physicians.

“I think this is a very positive step. As you know, the devil is always in the details. We need to see how the actual agreement works out, but this is very encouraging,” he said.

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The announcement was made at the Saskatchewan Medical Association Spring Representative Assembly. Dr Carla Holinaty, a family physician working in Saskatoon and chair of the section of family practice in Saskatoon, is in favour of the new payment model.

“We were thrilled and really excited to hear that this was something the government was coming forward with. It’s something that we have been asking for, for a period of time,” she said.

Holinaty added "it’s a really good start” to retaining and recruiting physicians to work in the province.

“The ultimate goal of both us and the government is to move towards a family physician lead team-based care model but to be able to do that, we need to have different methods of compensation and different compensation models in place that allow that type of care to happen,” she said.

A timeline of a year has been laid out by the province to get a deal with the Saskatchewan Medical Association and roll out the new payment method but both sides say they want to see a deal reached much faster.