Patients who rely on virtual care now facing fees in Ontario: health-care platform founder
CTV
According to the founder of one virtual care platform, Ontario funding changes have had a dramatic impact on its ability to provide services to patients who are now being asked to pay out of pocket for care that used to be free during the pandemic.
Amid a growing shortage of family doctors and increasing pressure on Canada’s hospital systems, recent funding changes have slashed access to virtual care in Ontario — forcing some patients to choose between a potentially unnecessary emergency room visit and paying out of pocket for care that used to be free, according to the founder of one virtual care platform.
That platform, called Rocket Doctor, says cuts to funding have had a dramatic impact on its ability to provide services to patients.
The platform operates in B.C., Alberta and Ontario, but it has been asking Ontario patients to pay out of pocket ever since the province stripped funding to physicians offering virtual care in December. Another virtual care platform, Kixcare, switched to a paid format in response to the funding change as well.
Dr. William Cherniak is an emergency care physician and the founder of Rocket Doctor, where patients can connect to a doctor online through partnerships with hospitals for various primary care issues, such as consultations, prescriptions or lab work referrals.
“I think the government has a very difficult job to do to try to sort out where to allocate funds in the health-care system, but I think one of the things that happened, specific to our program, is as a Canadian technology company, we enable physicians to practice medicine virtually, and then help them co-ordinate that into a system of care.” Cherniak told CTV’s Your Morning on Thursday.
“And when those cuts happened in December, dropping reimbursement by 50 per cent for family emergency physicians who had not seen a patient in person … it made it so that they really couldn’t provide the same standard of care virtually.”
Funding used to be fairly even whether a doctor was conducting in-person or virtual appointments during the pandemic, with Ontario doctors able to bill the government up to $80 per visit.
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