More doctors means higher health-care costs across Canada
TheStar.com – News/Canada – More than 82,000 physicians billed a total of $25 billion in 2015, new report reveals
Aug. 23, 2016. By The Canadian Press
A new report shows the number of physicians in Canada grew last year as did the overall cost of their services, which rose almost 4 per cent to $25 billion.
The report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) tallied the number of doctors across the country in 2015 at more than 82,000.
For the ninth year running, that number has increased at a faster rate than the population. There are now more doctors per person than ever before — 228 for every 100,000 Canadians.
The average gross clinical payment for a physician remained virtually unchanged at $339,000. But this amount varied by type of specialty: family doctors were paid an average of $271,000; medical specialists $338,000 and surgical specialists $446,000.
CIHI says the average gross clinical payment per physician varied across the county — from $258,000 in Nova Scotia to $366,000 in Alberta.
Geoff Ballinger, CIHI manager of physician information, said it’s important to realize that, in most cases, the average payment estimates don’t include practice overhead costs such as staff salaries, office rent, medical equipment and supplies.
Based on the number of MD degrees awarded by Canadian universities, the number of physicians is likely to continue expanding. In 2015, Canadian universities awarded 2,817 MD degrees, a slight increase from the previous year. Between 2011 and 2015, the number of MD degrees awarded in Canada increased by about 12 per cent.
“Understanding the supply, payments and activities of physicians across the country helps us to understand not only how many physicians there are and how much we pay for their services, but also how health-care resources are allocated,” Ballinger said in a release.
Also from the report:
– There were regional differences in the changes to the number of doctors. Saskatchewan and Alberta each saw increases of about 5 per cent over the previous year, while there was a 2-per-cent decrease in Newfoundland and Labrador and a 3-per-cent decline in New Brunswick.
– The number of physicians per capita has gone up in all provinces since 2011. In 2015, Nova Scotia had the most physicians per 100,000 population (261), followed by Newfoundland and Labrador (243) and Quebec (242). The provinces with the fewest physicians per 100,000 were P.E.I. (181), Saskatchewan (196) and Manitoba (204).
– The proportion of female doctors in Canada continues to rise. In 2015, almost 40 per cent were female, up from 36.5 per cent in 2011. By comparison, the number of male practitioners grew by 7.3 per cent.
Women accounted for a larger proportion of family medicine physicians (45 per cent) than specialists (35 per cent).
– In 2014-15, the average fee-per-service payment to physicians was $62.23. Family doctors’ average billing was $45.61 per service, while the average for medical and surgical specialists was $79.81 and $87.26, respectively.
< https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/08/23/more-doctors-means-higher-health-care-costs-across-canada.html >
Tags: budget, Health, jurisdiction, mental Health
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2016 at 11:49 am and is filed under Health Delivery System. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
354 Responses to “More doctors means higher health-care costs across Canada”
« Older Comments | Newer Comments »
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
How long have you been in this field? You seem to know a lot more than I do, I’d love to know your sources!
You have some helpful ideas! Maybe I should consider doing this by myself.
Thanks for your patience and sorry for the inconvenience!
We’re developing some community services to respond to this, and your blog is helpful.
Just came from google to your website have to say thanks.
What a great article.. i subscribed btw!
A friend of mine advised this site. And yes. it has some useful pieces of info and I enjoyed scaning it. Therefore i would love to drop you a quick note to express my thank. Take care
What a great article.. i subscribed btw!
A comprehensive Malay-language Islamic guide providing step-by-step instructions, clear Arabic text with Rumi transliterations, and translations for Tahlil ringkas, Doa Arwah, Solat Jenazah, Doa Selamat, and Ziarah Kubur.
Keep it up!. I usually don’t post in Blogs but your blog forced me to, amazing work.. beautiful A rise in An increase in An increase in.
I want to see your book when it comes out.
A neighbor of mine encouraged me to take a look at your blog site couple weeks ago, given that we both love similar stuff and I will need to say I am quite impressed.
I found your blog through google and I must say, this is probably one of the best well prepared articles I have come across in a long time. I have bookmarked your site for more posts.
Great blog right here! You seem to put a significant amount of material on the site rather quickly.
Glad to be one of several visitors on this awful internet site : D.
I like what you have to offer. Keep up the good work!
I’ll check back after you publish more articles.
Hey! awesome blog! I happen to be a daily visitor to your site (somewhat more like addict 😛 ) of this website. Just wanted to say I appreciate your blogs and am looking forward for more!
Great post. Just a heads up – I am running Ubuntu with the beta of Firefox and the navigation of your blog is kind of broken for me.
Thanks for another great post. Where else may anybody get that type of info in such an ideal way of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I’m at the search for such information.