2024-04-19 00:54:20
New standoff between the Federation of General Practitioners of Quebec (FMOQ) and the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé. The doctors’ union denounces the end, on May 31, of the agreement on accessibility which allowed the registration of 910,000 patients with groups of family doctors. According to him, this endangers the First Line Access Window (GAP). The minister assures that GAP “is here to stay”, but he warns family doctors that “there will not be more money if there is not more access”.
According to Quebec, half of the patients registered with a family medicine group (GMF) have not obtained a medical appointment in the last two years – information first revealed by La Presse, then confirmed by Le Devoir. However, under the agreement on accessibility, a GMF obtains $120 per patient registered collectively per year. This bonus will end on May 31.
At the National Assembly on Thursday, Christian Dubé repeated that the GAP – the counter through which patients registered with a GMF must go to obtain a medical appointment – was “here to stay”. “We are here with an important innovation that everyone has welcomed for being able to improve access. Do you think we want to remove that? » he said during the question period.
In the press scrum, he explained that it was planned that the agreement concluded with doctors in 2022 would end on May 31, 2024. The renewal or redefinition of this agreement was to be done as part of the negotiations of the new agreement. global network of doctors, which has just started, he said. The minister wants to take note of the data on appointments offered by family doctors — to which he will have access in May — before reaching an agreement with them. “The dollars have been given, but have the additional appointments been made? That’s what I want to check,” he said.
The GAP endangered, according to the FMOQ
The FMOQ believes that the agreement on accessibility must be extended until a global agreement is concluded, which will provide for “new methods of organization and remuneration”. According to its president, Dr. Marc-André Amyot, negotiations have only just begun. “We had a meeting to be told that on May 31, we would turn the switch off,” he maintains.
The FMOQ informed its members of the end of the agreement on accessibility in a note sent Wednesday at the end of the day. The union informed them of the options that will be available to them from June 1. Among them: continuing to offer services to patients registered collectively without the accompanying funding and no longer offering GAP appointment slots.
According to Dr. Amyot, members have already informed him of their intention to stop providing collective care. “I have a doctor with 39 years of practice who wrote to me this morning and said: “It’s very valuable, but on May 31, I’m retiring.” »
He adds that GMFs hired staff following the implementation of the GAP. “What will happen, if there is no more than $120, is layoffs and we go back to what we were before. »
Dr. Amyot recognizes that not all patients registered collectively have consulted a doctor. “But what we did, rather than leaving these appointments empty, we said: ‘Perfect, put orphan patients who have not been registered collectively, put them in these slots, we don’t wants to leave no beach free.” »
According to him, the sum of $120 for collective registration is justified. “The patients we see now are heavier,” he says. They are more relevant. It’s more complex, because the other simpler cases which might be handled by other professionals, we have them resolved by other professionals. »
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