Quebec's threat to penalize FPs who don't have a minimum number of patients still has steps to go

Quebec City - Even though Quebec premier François Legault has threatened to use the penalties that former Health Minister Dr. Gaétan Barrette had planned with his Law 20 in 2015 to force family doctors to take a minimum number of patients, he has some steps to take to do so. The provisions were never enshrined in law, nor activated in regulation. Legault aroused a strong reaction from the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ) when he said during his end-of-session report that some family doctors were not taking care of enough patients. “Quebec is the province, all things considered, which has the most family physicians. So we have a problem,” he said. There are two possible approaches to remedy this, he explained. The first is to change the method of remuneration to capitation. "Then there is the second approach, that of Dr. Barrette, and which is not necessarily bad, which was Bill 20 where there are penalties if a family doctor does not take charge of a minimum number of patients,” Legault said. Would the premier go that far? "It is not excluded," he replied, without further details. His press secretary did not respond to requests for clarification from Professionsante.ca on the number of patients family physicians should have registered and the penalties to which they would be exposed. A law that sowed wrath Bill 20 was tabled in 2014 and was adopted by the previous Couillard government on November 10, 2015. The media reported that the minimum number of registered patients a doctor would have to have to be in compliance was 1,500 but that number was in text of the Bill, nor was the maximum penalty of up to a maximum of 30% of a doctor's remuneration. Nevertheless, the government's intentions sowed anger among the ranks of general practitioners and led to the holding of special assemblies in Montreal and Quebec. Dr. Louis Godin, leader of the FMOQ, had called the issue the biggest battle in family medicine in many years at the time. Things never went that far. In in 2015, an agreement then described as “historic” was entered into between Dr. Barrette and the FMOQ which led to the creation of super-clinics. Under this agreement, no quota was imposed on family physicians, but the goal was that all Quebecers who wished to have a family physician could obtain one before Dec. 31, 2017. On the same date, this agreement targeted a rate of enrollment of 85% of the population and an attendance rate of 80% for family physicians. The parties were so optimistic that it was even expected that a patient registered in an access counter would be taken care of within 30 days. In return, the agreement ensured that family physicians were excluded from Bill 20 when it was adopted. Article 34 specifically stated: "The government undertakes not to bring into force the provisions applying to family physicians contained in the said bill." Sharp increase in patients registered However the number of patients looking for a family doctor has increased every year. A registry of Quebecers looking for a family doctor has continued to climb: March 31, 2018: 428,043 March 31, 2019: 541,035 March 32, 2020: 630,722 March 31, 2021: 744,981 Still not enshrined in law If the government wants to impose targets and penalties on general practitioners to force them to register more patients under Bill 20, it will need to first adopt them by regulation. Originally ran on our sister brand in Quebec, Profession Santé. Translated from French.

Quebec's threat to penalize FPs who don't have a minimum number of patients still has steps to go

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