Minister of Health, Adriana LaGrange (Government of Alberta)

By Brian Konrad with files from Canadian Press

Provincial Politics

Province taking immediate action to improve access to primary health care in Alberta

Oct 18, 2023 | 12:59 PM

EDMONTON – Alberta is making changes aimed at making it easier for family doctors and caregivers to see more patients.

Health Minister Adriana LaGrange says $57 million will be spent over the next three years to enable family doctors and nurse practitioners to help more people.

Each provider would be eligible for up to $10,000 per year.

The province says it will work with the Alberta Medical Association to develop a new payment model that helps family doctors develop long-term comprehensive care relationships with patients.

The plan is to develop a system where doctors can spend more time with patients and less time doing paperwork.

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The province says it will also put $20 million in a fund to help Indigenous communities deliver primary health care services.

Last fall, health care leaders, Indigenous partners and experts from across Canada and around the world formed advisory panels and identified immediate, medium and long term improvements to strengthen Alberta’s primary health care system.

In a release, the province lists the actions being taken immediately:

• Creating a primary health care division within Alberta Health.
• Allocating $57 million over three years to provide family doctors and nurse practitioners with support to help manage their increasing number of patients. Each provider has the potential to receive up to $10,000 annually.
• Working with the Alberta Medical Association to create a task force to recommend a new payment model for family physicians that encourages comprehensive primary care – where a patient has a regular family doctor who they develop a long-term relationship with and who works with them to ensure all their health care needs are met.
• Developing a memorandum of understanding with the Alberta Medical Association to collaborate on a transition to a new physician compensation model, modernize primary care governance and enable family doctors to spend more time with patients and less time on paperwork and immediately stabilize primary care.
• Expanding online mental health services, allowing doctors to bill for virtual mental health checks and therapy, and compensating them for extra time spent with patients virtually.
• Ensuring doctors get paid if patients can’t prove insurance coverage, reducing administrative burden. This is known as “good faith” claims.
• Introducing a payment system that will support nurse practitioners to open their own clinics, take on patients and offer services based on their scope of practice, training and expertise. Nurse practitioners have completed graduate studies ensuring that they are properly trained to examine patients, provide diagnoses and prescribe medication.

The release also lists immediate measures for strengthening Indigenous health care :

• Creating an Indigenous health division within Alberta Health.
• Creating a $20-million fund for Indigenous communities to design and deliver innovative primary health care services and projects.
• Creating an Indigenous patient complaints investigator and Elders roster to investigate incidences of racism during the delivery of health care and provide culturally safe support to Indigenous patients throughout the patient complaint process.
• Investing in a community-based Indigenous patient navigator program to support Indigenous peoples throughout their health care journey.

The province says the next step will be to further engage with health care partners, including Indigenous communities, to implement these immediate priorities and the broader recommendations as part of the Modernizing Alberta’s Primary Health Care System (MAPS) initiative.

David Shepherd, Alberta NDP Health Critic for Primary and Rural Care, made the following statement in response to the UCP’s MAPS update:

“More Albertans than ever before can’t find a family doctor, but the UCP just keep pushing papers around their desk. Today, they announced the creation of another panel with reheated instructions to study actions they’ve been discussing and promising to take for years, including a new primary care compensation model.

“I’m proud of the forward-looking Family Health Teams plan we presented to Albertans during the campaign. It seems the UCP have little thought for the thousands and thousands of Albertans without access to primary care or stuck waiting for hours at the emergency room.

“Many other provinces have enacted real reforms and support for family doctors in the same time it’s taken for the UCP to simply start cleaning up the mess from the four years they spent attacking doctors and undermining primary care.

“Sadly, I saw little today that will provide tangible help to recruit or retain family doctors or improve Albertans’ access to care. In the midst of an urgent crisis, Alberta is falling even further behind while the UCP continue to drag their feet.

“I am glad to see the release of the work of and recommendations from the Indigenous panel. In our consultations with Indigenous and other racialized communities they were clear there is real work to be done to address issues of systemic racism and begin working towards health equity. We will be watching closely for tangible action to be taken on these fronts.”

(The Canadian Press)

(With files from rdnewsNOW)