tbbhatna
Hi everyone,
I have been interested in various aspects of Ontario’s healthcare program for a while now, and I was hoping to hear other peoples’ thoughts on it as well… I’ve done a decent amount of reading and formed my own opinions, but I’m hoping I can get some more perspective form people on forums like these. Here’s the background:
While I was born and raised in Ontario, I’ve been living in Vancouver, BC for the past 4-5 years (I’m out here to go to school at UBC). In my time, here, I’ve seen that there are LOTS of private medical clinics, that facilitate both elective surgeries and timely insured services as well. Specifically, it seems that the Medical Imaging services are a huge industry here. There are a large number of private medical imaging clinics offering MRIs, CTs, PETs, x-rays, etc., for patient who opt to pay out-of-pocket to get their scans quicker, which allows quicker service by their referring clinician. Quebec has a similar system, but some of the provinces (and the one which I’m most interested in is Ontario, because it’s my home province) have chosen to actively avoid this system.
From my background reading, I can see that most provinces do their best to adhere to the Canada Health Act (CHA), which are a set of *guidelines* put forth by the federal government, which aim to provide universal health-care, and does it’s best to prevent the establishment of a two-tier health-care system (which is pretty much what the pay-out-of-pocket clinics are facilitating). If provinces adhere to these standards, they get a federal influx of funds towards health programs, but if they deviate from the CHA, apparently the province budgets are penalized (though I’m not clear on the details of that exchange). Furthermore, the provinces have created their own laws regarding “user fees” (i.e. out-of-pocket payments) – some more restrictive than others, as seen in the comparison between BC and Ontario. At this point, the legislature on private clinics gets a little gray, because I’m certain that I can Google some imaging clinics in Ontario that claim to be able to provide body scans quicker than the standard OHIP wait times for imaging services.. some say this is a loophole in the health legislature, or that the gov’t is turning a blind eye to these clinics – but now I’m just conjecturing and going on hearsay.
Long-winded post. I know. Sorry!
I’d like to hear from people from inside or outside Ontario about what they feel on this issue. Wait times for health services (and for this forum, I’d love to focus only on medical imaging) are at an all-time high. The government-insured health services that get delivered through public imaging clinics do not provide enough money to even run the scanner – most public imaging clinics rely on additional gov’t grants, or the rest of the hospital they are a part of to ‘float’ the imaging division. As higher demands are made for medical imaging (and there’s no question about it.. the public AND clinicians want CTs, MRIs etc. more and more often for early diagnosis or screening of a countless number of maladies), the government simply won’t be able to deliver without exorbitant wait times; or, they’ll just cut a bunch of services from their “insured services” list.
What can we do about this? Is it possible to allow privatization/semi-privatization of medical clinics into Ontario without automatically opening the door to full-fledged two-tier health-care much like it is in the states? We’re already losing a large number of Canadian patients to private clinics in Buffalo across the border who are more than willing to take our money for a quick scan. Couldn’t those scanning fees be offered and taxed in Canada to provide at least a little return for the government health plans?
I’d love to hear any thoughts you have on this.. if it’s a personal experience you’re willing to share, I’d be grateful for it. This has been a thorn in my side for a little while now and I just want to see if I’m missing something crucial in my thought process.
Thanks so much for reading!
I have been interested in various aspects of Ontario’s healthcare program for a while now, and I was hoping to hear other peoples’ thoughts on it as well… I’ve done a decent amount of reading and formed my own opinions, but I’m hoping I can get some more perspective form people on forums like these. Here’s the background:
While I was born and raised in Ontario, I’ve been living in Vancouver, BC for the past 4-5 years (I’m out here to go to school at UBC). In my time, here, I’ve seen that there are LOTS of private medical clinics, that facilitate both elective surgeries and timely insured services as well. Specifically, it seems that the Medical Imaging services are a huge industry here. There are a large number of private medical imaging clinics offering MRIs, CTs, PETs, x-rays, etc., for patient who opt to pay out-of-pocket to get their scans quicker, which allows quicker service by their referring clinician. Quebec has a similar system, but some of the provinces (and the one which I’m most interested in is Ontario, because it’s my home province) have chosen to actively avoid this system.
From my background reading, I can see that most provinces do their best to adhere to the Canada Health Act (CHA), which are a set of *guidelines* put forth by the federal government, which aim to provide universal health-care, and does it’s best to prevent the establishment of a two-tier health-care system (which is pretty much what the pay-out-of-pocket clinics are facilitating). If provinces adhere to these standards, they get a federal influx of funds towards health programs, but if they deviate from the CHA, apparently the province budgets are penalized (though I’m not clear on the details of that exchange). Furthermore, the provinces have created their own laws regarding “user fees” (i.e. out-of-pocket payments) – some more restrictive than others, as seen in the comparison between BC and Ontario. At this point, the legislature on private clinics gets a little gray, because I’m certain that I can Google some imaging clinics in Ontario that claim to be able to provide body scans quicker than the standard OHIP wait times for imaging services.. some say this is a loophole in the health legislature, or that the gov’t is turning a blind eye to these clinics – but now I’m just conjecturing and going on hearsay.
Long-winded post. I know. Sorry!
I’d like to hear from people from inside or outside Ontario about what they feel on this issue. Wait times for health services (and for this forum, I’d love to focus only on medical imaging) are at an all-time high. The government-insured health services that get delivered through public imaging clinics do not provide enough money to even run the scanner – most public imaging clinics rely on additional gov’t grants, or the rest of the hospital they are a part of to ‘float’ the imaging division. As higher demands are made for medical imaging (and there’s no question about it.. the public AND clinicians want CTs, MRIs etc. more and more often for early diagnosis or screening of a countless number of maladies), the government simply won’t be able to deliver without exorbitant wait times; or, they’ll just cut a bunch of services from their “insured services” list.
What can we do about this? Is it possible to allow privatization/semi-privatization of medical clinics into Ontario without automatically opening the door to full-fledged two-tier health-care much like it is in the states? We’re already losing a large number of Canadian patients to private clinics in Buffalo across the border who are more than willing to take our money for a quick scan. Couldn’t those scanning fees be offered and taxed in Canada to provide at least a little return for the government health plans?
I’d love to hear any thoughts you have on this.. if it’s a personal experience you’re willing to share, I’d be grateful for it. This has been a thorn in my side for a little while now and I just want to see if I’m missing something crucial in my thought process.
Thanks so much for reading!