by medicaltechont | Mar 24, 2018 | Healthcare, OHIP Billing
Ontario’s Ministry of Health is doing little to crack down on doctors who improperly bill OHIP, according to information obtained by CBC/Radio-Canada.
A freedom of information request shows the province has recovered only $1.1 million in illegitimate billings over the past two years, while the auditor general pointed in her 2016 report to some $6 million in fees improperly paid to doctors.
“This is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money, taxpayers’ money that was supposed to go to health,” said NDP health critic France Gélinas in an interview with CBC News.
Read more at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ohip-fraud-doctors-overbilling-ontario-1.4587901
by medicaltechont | Oct 17, 2016 | OHIP Billing, Ontario, Privacy, private clinics
TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – Oct. 7, 2016) – This afternoon, the Wynne government has made public a formal invitation from the Health Minister to Ed Clark to “assess and validate the value these [health data, e-health records and related intellectual property and infrastructure] systems have created for Ontario and to recommend ways to take them to the next level”.
Read more at http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/coalition-warns-health-minister-privatization-ontarios-health-systems-patient-records-2164963.htm
by medicaltechont | Nov 14, 2015 | Canada, e-Health, OHIP Billing, private clinics
The dispute between Ontario doctors and the province over billing rates is threatening access to methadone treatment, with two private Toronto clinics closing their doors and patients in some rural communities facing an uncertain future.
The threat to service follows a 1.3-per-cent rate reduction imposed by the province last month on all fee-for-service billings. The money-saving measures also included targeted reductions, among them a 50-per-cent cut to rates paid to doctors for urine tests that are done once a week or more frequently as part of methadone therapy used to treat heroin and other opioid addictions.
Now at least one Toronto doctor says the fee cut amounts to roughly 25 per cent of his total revenue and means his smaller clinics are losing money. First Nations leaders also are warning access in rural and Northern communities is in danger because private clinics – where most methadone treatment is given – are not as financially attractive. Others say this latest battle over money points to deeper problems with how methadone treatment is delivered in Ontario that go beyond the current billing battle.
Click here to read more.
by medicaltechont | Oct 25, 2015 | OHIP Billing, Ontario
Toronto dermatologist Ben Barankin is adamant that the cuts by Kathleen Wynne’s government to doctors’ service fees will create a huge impact on patients in the coming months.
Barankin, who has been in practice for 10 years, said staff will have to be let go, there will be longer wait times for OHIP-funded treatments and insisted the government’s moves are “pushing” specialists — like him — who also operate private clinics, closer towards a two-tiered system.
http://www.torontosun.com/2015/10/18/doc-warns-of-longer-waits-for-ohip-funded-procedures
by medicaltechont | Feb 14, 2015 | Canada, e-Health, EHR, OHIP Billing, Ontario MD, Vendors
Purchasing electronic health record (EHR) systems is a process in which potential buyers and users often seek and assess information about the products in question and compare alternatives. EHR is often a new technology to the people who use it, introducing new ways of performing clinical and administrative tasks. As such, it may be regarded as an innovation. Rogers’ [] diffusion of innovations theory suggests that the process of adopting innovations (the innovation decision process) typically follows five stages: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. Most relevant to this work is the knowledge stage in which adopters learn about the existence of an innovation (awareness knowledge), gain basic knowledge of how to use it (how-to knowledge), and understand the underlying principles behind it (principles knowledge). This is followed by the persuasion stage, in which potential adopters actively seek more information about the innovation, evaluate its characteristics, form positive or negative attitudes toward it, and subsequently adopt (eg, purchase) or reject the innovation at the decision stage.
For EHRs, the adoption decision process involves a planning phase that includes needs assessment, identifying champions, gaining buy-in from stakeholders, workflow analysis, understanding financial issues, and goal setting [,]. This is followed by a system selection phase in which information is sought from various sources including vendors and general consultants[], visits to practices that have installed systems of interest, and product demonstrations [,]. At this stage, according to Lorenzi et al [], “the internet provides a valuable source of information regarding specific EHR system products, capabilities, and the selection process” (p.8). In particular, vendor websites could play an important role in making an adoption decision by creating awareness, providing how-to and principle knowledge, and using various persuasive means to affect potential adopters’ perceptions of EHRs. However, to the best of our knowledge, no systematic efforts have been made to examine whether EHR vendors use their websites to present the information typically gathered in the pre-decision stages of Rogers’ innovation-decision process.
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The dispute between Ontario doctors and the province over billing rates is threatening access to methadone treatment, with two private Toronto clinics closing their doors and patients in some rural communities facing an uncertain future.
