Ontario to recoup COVID-19 loans from doctors by deducting their OHIP payments
CTV
The Ontario government says it plans to recoup loan payments issued to doctors at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic by deducting the amounts from their OHIP payments.
Ontario doctors who received loans from the province during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to cover increased costs and offset revenue losses stemming from lower patient volumes will now have one year to pay those sums back.
The Ontario government laid out plans to recoup the money in a memo issued to the Ontario Medical Association on Friday. The province said it is “critical” to recover more than $521 million in outstanding loan payments from the COVID-19 Advance Payment Program in order to fund other priorities.
The combination of low COVID-19 infection rates and strong vaccine uptake throughout the province suggests the time is right to “transition to a post-pandemic state,” it added.
“When we introduced this program, we were clear that these payments would need to be paid back, as is the case with any loan,” the memo stated.
“These funds are critical for important priorities like expanding access to team-based primary care, home care, mental health services and shortening wait times for key surgeries and procedures.”
The province launched the COVID-19 Advance Payment Program in April 2020 to provide monthly automated advance payments to physicians at rates equivalent to 70 per cent of their average income.
Beginning next month, the Ministry of Health will recover that money by deducting pay from physicians' monthly OHIP payments over a one-year period, rather than the original five-month timeline it first proposed, with no interest charged.
