More money, not enough details: Where’s the new payment model for Alta. docs now that the province’s budget is out?

On paper Alberta’s budget for 2024-25 appears promising for primary care, with a $26.2-billion operating budget for health—an increase of $1.1 billion from the previous budget—that includes the largest physician compensation in the province’s history, according to an X post by Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange.There’s also LaGrange’s promise to implement the comprehensive care model for which many family doctors in the province have been pushing.But how the healthcare budget will be allocated and how quickly the province will deliver on its commitment to the comprehensive care model are both key questions still awaiting answers.“The specifics need to be worked out about where the money is going,” Dr. Paul Parks, president of the Alberta Medical Association, wrote in a March 1 letter to members which also noted the increase to the Physician Services Budget “that will offset some of the volume we have seen from population growth and add a partial funding top up for inflation. It does not catch up, but because we negotiated a rate agreement, this is less of an issue.”Read: AMA’s Dr. Paul Parks reacts to Alberta's allocations for healthcare in its 2024-25 budgetIn an interview with the Edmonton Journal, Dr. Parks said that LaGrange has reiterated her commitment to the comprehensive care funding model and to ensuring Alberta is competitive with other provinces—such as British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario—that have updated their physician agreements to include funding for longitudinal care.By comparison, Alberta doctors work largely on a fee-for-service funding model despite the existence of alternative models such as annual block funding for family practices.With the new budget, said Dr. Parks in his letter, the Health Ministry can move forward “to lock stabilization and the new payment model down and get the job done. We need to move expeditiously. The urgency is still very real.”Once conditions for family and rural medicine in the province start to improve, the AMA—which is hosting a members-only town hall on March 6—will double down on issues facing physicians in other specialties.“I made a promise to physicians in acute specialty care that we would advocate strongly for their needs when family and rural medicine matters were starting to turn in the right direction,” wrote Dr. Parks. “We will need to keep pushing on primary care, but you will be seeing acute care advocacy really coming to the fore.”Read: Primary care in 'critical condition,' AMA president says, citing survey

More money, not enough details: Where’s the new payment model for Alta. docs now that the province’s budget is out?

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