Archive for the ‘Health Delivery System’ Category
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Is clinic’s $1,000 member fee innovative health care or an erosion of medicare?
Monday, August 29th, 2011
Aug 27, 2011
Dr. Dockrill said she knows of 106 primary-care physicians’ offices in Ontario that are running similar practices with mandatory “block fees” levied in exchange for enhanced service, while versions of the concept are running more or less openly in at least three other provinces… To those who believe in a strong public health care system the creeping prevalence of such semi-private practices is nothing to celebrate… It’s one thing for a physician to offer additional or enhanced services for a voluntary fee, it is quite another to make the charge for such services mandatory
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Politicians should scrub up on health care
Saturday, August 27th, 2011
Aug 24, 2011
… instead of calling for government leadership, the report concludes that politicians cannot be expected to act because the situation has become “too toxic.” “Given entrenched beliefs, as well as the current fiscal challenges in Canada, the ability of governments to lead fundamental health-care reform may be seriously compromised.” The CMA implores its members, as well as citizens and other professionals, to work for change. On this point, the CMA is dead wrong.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology
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‘Fractured’ health-care system failing patients, doctors say
Thursday, August 18th, 2011
Aug. 18, 2011
Large numbers of people told the CMA that the future of medicine in this country must include healthier communities through a health promotion strategy, as well as improved access to long-term care, home-based care and pharmacare… “We now want to use that valuable information to mobilize governments to turn their attention to a new health-care system before the current federal-provincial-territorial accord expires in 2014,” said Dr. Turnbull. “The goal must be to use the next accord to transform health care so it truly serves Canadians for future generations.”
Tags: Health, mental Health, participation
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New attitudes change health [First Nations]
Thursday, August 18th, 2011
August 18, 2011
In 2010, the Health Council of Canada began a multi-year project to learn about programs and strategies that have the potential to reduce these unacceptable health disparities between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians… On Aug. 9, we released a report about what we heard for Canadians and governments, titled Understanding and Improving Aboriginal Maternal and Child Health in Canada… We heard about the importance of offering health care services that integrate mainstream Western medicine with traditional and culturally relevant aboriginal practices…
Tags: Health, Indigenous, participation, standard of living, women
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A good start toward rational health-care billing
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Aug 15 2011
Why would the OMA quietly give back more than $8,000 per doctor? A few numbers may help to put this in context: Total clinical payments to Ontario physicians (from Canadian Institute for Health Information, CIHI): • 2004-05: $5.17 billion. • 2008-09: $7.48 billion. • Growth in four years: 44.7 per cent… Some of this is due to new doctors coming in — probably under 1 per cent… This money comes in three areas that simply were no longer publicly defensible…
Tags: budget, featured, Health
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Ontario’s cure for medicare: snitching
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Aug 17, 2011
Ontario has taken the unprecedented step of setting up a toll-free snitch line for people to report cases of illegal private health care — and says it has triggered 35 investigations in barely a month… The government has ordered 4,500 patients to be reimbursed out-of-pocket fees they had been levied by colonoscopy clinics in the last few years… “There’s no doubt in my mind that people are trying to get around (the law)…. I think it’s really important that we all protect our universal health-care system,” the Health Minister said…
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization
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Low grades for health system
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
Aug 16, 2011
Canadians have widespread misgivings about the system, even while not fully understanding how it works. They also favour using tax incentives to encourage healthier living and eating… – Just 5% of respondents gave the system an A grade; 45% giving it a B, 36% a C, 10% a D, and 4% a failing F… – 55% rated their health as excellent or very good… even though 52% report having been diagnosed with one or more chronic diseases. – 63% favour some kind of tax-based incentive to encourage more healthy diets and lifestyles…
Tags: Health, standard of living
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‘Fractured’ health care system is failing Canadians, report finds
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
Aug. 10, 2011
A large number of Canadians told the CMA they believe health care is “in distress.”… “the health care system is fractured to such a degree that it is, in some ways, a system in name only,” says the report. “ From the perspective of the patient as a consumer of health care, it does a poor job of transitioning patients from one level of care to another. It does not provide patient-centred care — the care people need when they need it.” [It] is failing Canadians, especially vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, aboriginal people and those who live in rural parts of the country.
Tags: Health, Indigenous, mental Health, rights, standard of living
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Overcharged for health care
Friday, August 5th, 2011
Aug 03 2011
The actual cost of many services and procedures has been spiralling downward — yet the amount provincial governments spend on health care has been spiralling upward. How can this be? …Health care is a high-tech industry and time-saving innovations that improve outcomes are being introduced all the time… Nevertheless, over the past decade, health-care spending has been climbing by about 7 per cent a year. Partly that’s because we do more of some things… But in other cases, it’s now clear that we are simply overpaying.
Tags: budget, Health, standard of living
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Ontario stands to save $2 billion in drug reforms
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
August 3, 2011
Ontario should save $2 billion over the next three years as 44 medications — from cholesterol fighting Crestor to the targeted cancer therapy Gleevec — come off patent and the fruits of drug reform take hold. Savings made will be poured back into reducing the ballooning $47 billion health-care budget and buying new medications under the Ontario Drug Benefit Plan… Drugs make up about 10 per cent of the province’s $47 billion health spending, and 32 per cent of the $25 billion Ontarians spend on private health care.
Tags: budget, Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
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