Improve health care: Reduce administrative burden

I just spent three hours working on insurance forms, pharmacy requests, dealing with patients’ lost requisitions, rebooking missed consultation appointments and dealing with demands for tests or records requested by patients’ dentists, chiropractors or physiotherapists. “Why do I need to do this stuff?” We need a better way forward than griping on a Sunday. We need to come up with solutions and then spend our energies “selling” the ideas to those who make policy decisions. Here is the greatest opportunity: Ontario is heading toward an election on June 2. Many incredible organizations including the Ontario Medical Association, the Section of General and Family Medicine and the Ontario College of Family Physicians have prepared clear guidance based on evidence for improving health care for all Ontario citizens. This is my summary and a challenge to you to amplify the message (if you agree). Read: Dr. Alykhan Abdulla: Improve healthcare: More family doctors This is the second of a three part series on improving healthcare at a foundational level. It is not an exhaustive treatise but rather focused on primary care. Investments in primary care have greater value at reducing all-cause mortality and improving all health parameters. Here are the three principles as follows: Ensure every Ontarian gets a family doctor Ensure family doctors actually deal with patients and not do more administrative work Ensure every family doctor works in a team This article will deal with the second point: Ensure family doctors deal with patients and not administrative work. On average, doctors do administrative work for 16% to 20% of their work weeks. That’s one freaking day per week! Or an entire month of paperwork. Is this a good use of my time? Simple facts: We know there were about 14, 962 family doctors in Ontario in 2019. We know family doctors do on average 50 hours per week. Remember 20% is administrative work or 10 hours per week. So 14,962 doctors with 10 hours per week seeing three patients per hour for 45 weeks per year (there needs to be some holiday time) is an additional 20.2 million patient visits per year in Ontario that are being blocked by administrative work. Do you think the 1.3 million unattached patients could be absorbed? Do you think there would be less ER visits? Comprehensive family doctors treat patients early in their disease, improve health outcomes and save money! Why are we wasting these resources? What is the solution? We need more administrative supporters for each and every family doctor in Ontario. We need scribes, we need more allied healthcare workers and we need more IT solutions. We need to reduce requests for paperwork. CHALLENGE: So what can you do (if you want to change things proactively)? Reach out to your MPP or MPP candidate and use the following TOOL KIT Write an op-ed using the messaging of OMA or OCFP Talk to everyone you know that this is a critical issue. Make it an election issue. Dr. Alykhan Abdulla is a comprehensive family doctor working in Manotick, Ont. and a past-chair of the section of general and family practice and lead for longitudinal leadership curricula at Univerity of Ottawa undergraduate medical education. Twitter @AlykhanAbdulla

Improve health care: Reduce administrative burden

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics