A new bill aimed at allowing Alberta physicians to practise in both private and public health care systems will keep family doctors out of the private system – for now.
Bill 11, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, which implements the “dual practice system,” was introduced in the Alberta legislature Monday.
The dual model was previously announced by the premier last week.
The proposed legislation keeps emergency medicine and surgeries for life-threatening conditions, including cancer, within the public system. Family physicians will also be staying in the public system exclusively, for the time-being.
“At this time, family medicine providers will not be eligible to flexible participants within this new model,” reads a news release from the province.
The Alberta government says measures in the bill do not violate the Canada Health Act.
Matt Jones, minister of hospital and surgical health services, said the dual system could act as a physician recruitment measure.
“Alberta is not an island. Alberta competes for health care professionals all across Canada, North America,” he said at a news conference Monday.
“So I would more look at it as we have an ability to allow physicians to do some private activity while making them responsible to do the majority or some portion of the public system.
“That’s a compelling recruitment attraction and retention tool for physicians and health care professionals.”
The province intends to consult with health care providers and organizations on potential limits to the public-private system.
For example, the province is considering having surgeons perform a set number of publicly funded surgeries as a condition for being allowed to practise in the private system. Another option is setting a minimum number of years in the public system before entering the private system.
Other possible guardrails include only allowing private surgeries in the evenings, weekends or at underused rural hospitals and prohibiting certain specialists from moving into private practice if there aren’t enough of them to sustain the public system.
The government will require physicians who practise in both the private and public systems to keep separate records to avoid mix-ups in what gets paid by Alberta Health. The system will be set up so they can toggle back and forth between the systems.
The wide-ranging legislation also lays out rules to improve food safety oversight, tightens rules to prevent improper billing by doctors and clinics, and sets out a new process for renewing health cards.
