Most Doctors Took A Financial Hit In Year 1 Of Covid But Top Earners Managed Just Fine

For most doctors in Canada, the first full year of the pandemic also brought a financial boost, according to a CBC News analysis of government health program payments to 58,000 doctors in six provinces that have such data. A quarter of those doctors saw at least a 20 percent drop in their fees compared to the previous year, according to the CBC analysis. In a country where the average doctor makes $350,000 a year, that means that on average, one in four of those doctors earned about $70,000. “People have to remember right away at the beginning of the pandemic, things were really tight,” said Michael Green, a family physician and professor and chair of the department of family medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. In the early months of the pandemic, he noted, everyone was told to stay home, so few people visited their doctor in person. For about 60 percent of doctors who are paid for each procedure or service they perform – a payment system called “fee-for-service” – the lack of patients in the early months of the pandemic meant a noticeable drop in their income for the year. But for a select group of highly paid doctors, it was a different story, according to the CBC analysis. Among the 100 doctors in each province who billed the most for their provincial health plan — a group made up mostly of medical specialists — only about 7% experienced the same 20% drop in payments in the first year of the pandemic. In fact, twice as many of these high-cost physicians had a 20 percent increase in fee-for-service income. The CBC analysis also found that a large number of them received federal money, too, in the form of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.

Alas for pediatricians, dermatologists

Many governments publish “sunshine lists” of public sector salaries, but provincial health plan payments to doctors are a little slippery. Only five provinces (BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador) routinely release data, while a sixth, Ontario, requires an access to information request. The figures come with caveats: Generally only fee-for-service payments are included, which leaves out the many doctors who are paid by salary, hourly rate or the number of patients enrolled in their family practice. And the payment numbers don’t represent overhead, which usually ranging from 13 to 43 percent of a doctor’s bills. Family doctor Michael Green said that at the start of the pandemic, patient visits to surgeries “dropped like a rock”. Later, some doctors were able to recoup the resulting lost revenue — and then some. (CBC) Provincial payment data shows that the COVID-19 lockdowns have hit some specialties particularly hard. For example, 45 per cent of ophthalmologists in Ontario lost at least a fifth of their income to fees. The percentage was almost equally high for pediatricians (42%), dermatologists (40%), otolaryngology specialists (39%) and plastic surgeons (37%). Other specialists in Ontario fared relatively well. Only five percent of endocrinologists saw their fees drop by a fifth, as did nine percent of hematologists and 11 percent of vascular surgeons. Green, a professor and physician at Queen’s University, thinks some of these differences in how the pandemic has affected doctors may be because once the lockdowns ended, some types of doctors had a backlog they could get through, while others who tend to cure transient diseases they did. not. “Teams that will [be] able to, say, catch up on the number of procedures later in the year – to make up their backlog – would have a chance to recover their charges in total for the whole year, even if they had a very low period during those initial months,” he said. Among them was Gdih Gdih, a Winnipeg ophthalmologist who was the fifth-highest-billing doctor in Manitoba last year and one of the highest-billing doctors across Canada, according to publicly available data compiled by the CBC. He said the first few weeks of the pandemic were a testing period for his laser eye surgery clinic. “When Covid hit, things were so slow and we literally had almost no income to pay 10 salaries… rent, insurance, equipment, lease, etc.,” Gidh wrote in an email in response to questions from CBC News. He said his overhead costs typically exceed $80,000 a month, or close to $1 million a year. By the end of the year, however, business was booming for the ophthalmologist. On average, it had billed about $2.2 million a year in services from 2016-17 to 2019-20. But for the fiscal year from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, his total charges rose to $3 million.

Cardiologist revenue increased from $1.5 million to $2 million

Gdih said there are “a few reasons for the unexpected increase,” including increased demand for some of the more expensive invasive procedures he performs. more work is available because of colleagues who decided to retire early or take time off due to stress. and extra time in his schedule to do this work since travel was mostly closed. The emergence of COVID has been Gdih’s best year for charges since at least 2016, and he’s not alone in that regard. An Ontario cardiologist billed the province $1.5 million for his services in fiscal year 2019, then increased his fees to more than $2 million in the first year of the pandemic. A BC urologist who averaged $875,000 in revenue in the four years before the pandemic billed for $1.24 million in procedures in fiscal 2020. Mohamed Awad was the 29th highest-billing doctor in Ontario during the first year of the pandemic. Gross pain specialty payments from the Ontario Health Insurance Program increased from $1.4 million to $2.35 million. Awad told CBC News in an email that he also took on “many new patients whose primary doctors retired during the pandemic” and also increased his hours. Coincidentally, another clinic also opened in March 2020, just as the pandemic was starting, he said. The CBC contacted a dozen other doctors who saw some of the highest fee increases in the first year of the pandemic. Two of them explained that it was because they had only partially started their medical practice in the previous year. another said it was because she was on leave before COVID, so her pre-pandemic charges were unusually low. None of those three doctors agreed to speak on the record. The rest did not answer. Overall, CBC News found that at least 60 of the 600 highest-billing doctors had their best financial year in the 12-month period that began as COVID took over. What’s more, the CBC found, some of them even received federal subsidies intended to help failing businesses keep workers on their payroll. WATCHES | Some of the country’s top doctors have had access to the benefits of COVID-19:

Some of Canada’s highest-paid doctors benefited from COVID emergency funds

A CBC News analysis found that some of Canada’s highest-billing doctors have benefited from the COVID-19 emergency funding. Although accepting the funding was not illegal, a professor of business ethics says these doctors must repay the money.

Federal subsidies for the highest bills

Started in March 2020, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy was the federal government’s biggest COVID-19 relief measure, providing employers with up to $960 a week per employee on their payroll so they can keep paying staff instead of laying them off when business weakens. In the 600-strong group of top doctors from each of the six provinces, more than a quarter received CEWS money. Winnipeg ophthalmologist Gdih resorted to the subsidy in the early months of COVID. He said uncertainty about how the pandemic was going to affect “the future and the continuity of our business” prompted him to seek the money. “However, when we received it later, I returned it in full as soon as the money [were] available,” Gdih said. Awad also received some CEWS money. His accountant applied for it without his knowledge, he said, but he never had access to the funds and he “paid them off immediately” once it appeared his bills were going up, not down. He provided the CBC with the CEWS account statement showing compensating credits and refunds. It is not known how much CEWS money the highest-billing doctors received, or for how long, because the federal government has only released names of CEWS recipients. However, there is no indication of wrongdoing or ineligibility under the terms of the grant, which only required a business to reduce revenue during certain four-week periods in order to receive federal funds. Richard Leblanc, a professor of governance, law and ethics at York University in Toronto, said doctors who received CEWS would have to pay it back if they eventually had a fiscal year. (CBC) In a curious quirk, the CBC analysis found that doctors who received CEWS payments in the first year of the pandemic billed more money to provincial health insurance, on average, than those who did not receive the subsidy. Among the top 600 doctors in the province’s data, the average doctor who benefited from CEWS billed $1.7 million, while those who didn’t receive the federal cash billed their province about $1.25 million on average. It’s not clear exactly why, but it could be that higher-billing doctors have more — and more specialized — staff who can handle financial issues like applying for a subsidy. Or they may have higher overhead costs and feel more pressure to shore up their finances when, in the early pandemic, the outlook for all businesses was bleak.

“Give the money back”

Although all doctors were entitled to receive the…

title: “Most Doctors Took A Financial Hit In Year 1 Of Covid But Top Earners Managed Just Fine Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-17” author: “Rosa Schlesser”

For most doctors in Canada, the first full year of the pandemic also brought a financial boost, according to a CBC News analysis of government health program payments to 58,000 doctors in six provinces that have such data. A quarter of those doctors saw at least a 20 percent drop in their fees compared to the previous year, according to the CBC analysis. In a country where the average doctor makes $350,000 a year, that means that on average, one in four of those doctors earned about $70,000. “People have to remember right away at the beginning of the pandemic, things were really tight,” said Michael Green, a family physician and professor and chair of the department of family medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. In the early months of the pandemic, he noted, everyone was told to stay home, so few people visited their doctor in person. For about 60 percent of doctors who are paid for each procedure or service they perform – a payment system called “fee-for-service” – the lack of patients in the early months of the pandemic meant a noticeable drop in their income for the year. But for a select group of highly paid doctors, it was a different story, according to the CBC analysis. Among the 100 doctors in each province who billed the most for their provincial health plan — a group made up mostly of medical specialists — only about 7% experienced the same 20% drop in payments in the first year of the pandemic. In fact, twice as many of these high-cost physicians had a 20 percent increase in fee-for-service income. The CBC analysis also found that a large number of them received federal money, too, in the form of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.

Alas for pediatricians, dermatologists

Many governments publish “sunshine lists” of public sector salaries, but provincial health plan payments to doctors are a little slippery. Only five provinces (BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador) routinely release data, while a sixth, Ontario, requires an access to information request. The figures come with caveats: Generally only fee-for-service payments are included, which leaves out the many doctors who are paid by salary, hourly rate or the number of patients enrolled in their family practice. And the payment numbers don’t represent overhead, which usually ranging from 13 to 43 percent of a doctor’s bills. Family doctor Michael Green said that at the start of the pandemic, patient visits to surgeries “dropped like a rock”. Later, some doctors were able to recoup the resulting lost revenue — and then some. (CBC) Provincial payment data shows that the COVID-19 lockdowns have hit some specialties particularly hard. For example, 45 per cent of ophthalmologists in Ontario lost at least a fifth of their income to fees. The percentage was almost equally high for pediatricians (42%), dermatologists (40%), otolaryngology specialists (39%) and plastic surgeons (37%). Other specialists in Ontario fared relatively well. Only five percent of endocrinologists saw their fees drop by a fifth, as did nine percent of hematologists and 11 percent of vascular surgeons. Green, a professor and physician at Queen’s University, thinks some of these differences in how the pandemic has affected doctors may be because once the lockdowns ended, some types of doctors had a backlog they could get through, while others who tend to cure transient diseases they did. not. “Teams that will [be] able to, say, catch up on the number of procedures later in the year – to make up their backlog – would have a chance to recover their charges in total for the whole year, even if they had a very low period during those initial months,” he said. Among them was Gdih Gdih, a Winnipeg ophthalmologist who was the fifth-highest-billing doctor in Manitoba last year and one of the highest-billing doctors across Canada, according to publicly available data compiled by the CBC. He said the first few weeks of the pandemic were a testing period for his laser eye surgery clinic. “When Covid hit, things were so slow and we literally had almost no income to pay 10 salaries… rent, insurance, equipment, lease, etc.,” Gidh wrote in an email in response to questions from CBC News. He said his overhead costs typically exceed $80,000 a month, or close to $1 million a year. By the end of the year, however, business was booming for the ophthalmologist. On average, it had billed about $2.2 million a year in services from 2016-17 to 2019-20. But for the fiscal year from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, his total charges rose to $3 million.

Cardiologist revenue increased from $1.5 million to $2 million

Gdih said there are “a few reasons for the unexpected increase,” including increased demand for some of the more expensive invasive procedures he performs. more work is available because of colleagues who decided to retire early or take time off due to stress. and extra time in his schedule to do this work since travel was mostly closed. The emergence of COVID has been Gdih’s best year for charges since at least 2016, and he’s not alone in that regard. An Ontario cardiologist billed the province $1.5 million for his services in fiscal year 2019, then increased his fees to more than $2 million in the first year of the pandemic. A BC urologist who averaged $875,000 in revenue in the four years before the pandemic billed for $1.24 million in procedures in fiscal 2020. Mohamed Awad was the 29th highest-billing doctor in Ontario during the first year of the pandemic. Gross pain specialty payments from the Ontario Health Insurance Program increased from $1.4 million to $2.35 million. Awad told CBC News in an email that he also took on “many new patients whose primary doctors retired during the pandemic” and also increased his hours. Coincidentally, another clinic also opened in March 2020, just as the pandemic was starting, he said. The CBC contacted a dozen other doctors who saw some of the highest fee increases in the first year of the pandemic. Two of them explained that it was because they had only partially started their medical practice in the previous year. another said it was because she was on leave before COVID, so her pre-pandemic charges were unusually low. None of those three doctors agreed to speak on the record. The rest did not answer. Overall, CBC News found that at least 60 of the 600 highest-billing doctors had their best financial year in the 12-month period that began as COVID took over. What’s more, the CBC found, some of them even received federal subsidies intended to help failing businesses keep workers on their payroll. WATCHES | Some of the country’s top doctors have had access to the benefits of COVID-19:

Some of Canada’s highest-paid doctors benefited from COVID emergency funds

A CBC News analysis found that some of Canada’s highest-billing doctors have benefited from the COVID-19 emergency funding. Although accepting the funding was not illegal, a professor of business ethics says these doctors must repay the money.

Federal subsidies for the highest bills

Started in March 2020, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy was the federal government’s biggest COVID-19 relief measure, providing employers with up to $960 a week per employee on their payroll so they can keep paying staff instead of laying them off when business weakens. In the 600-strong group of top doctors from each of the six provinces, more than a quarter received CEWS money. Winnipeg ophthalmologist Gdih resorted to the subsidy in the early months of COVID. He said uncertainty about how the pandemic was going to affect “the future and the continuity of our business” prompted him to seek the money. “However, when we received it later, I returned it in full as soon as the money [were] available,” Gdih said. Awad also received some CEWS money. His accountant applied for it without his knowledge, he said, but he never had access to the funds and he “paid them off immediately” once it appeared his bills were going up, not down. He provided the CBC with the CEWS account statement showing compensating credits and refunds. It is not known how much CEWS money the highest-billing doctors received, or for how long, because the federal government has only released names of CEWS recipients. However, there is no indication of wrongdoing or ineligibility under the terms of the grant, which only required a business to reduce revenue during certain four-week periods in order to receive federal funds. Richard Leblanc, a professor of governance, law and ethics at York University in Toronto, said doctors who received CEWS would have to pay it back if they eventually had a fiscal year. (CBC) In a curious quirk, the CBC analysis found that doctors who received CEWS payments in the first year of the pandemic billed more money to provincial health insurance, on average, than those who did not receive the subsidy. Among the top 600 doctors in the province’s data, the average doctor who benefited from CEWS billed $1.7 million, while those who didn’t receive the federal cash billed their province about $1.25 million on average. It’s not clear exactly why, but it could be that higher-billing doctors have more — and more specialized — staff who can handle financial issues like applying for a subsidy. Or they may have higher overhead costs and feel more pressure to shore up their finances when, in the early pandemic, the outlook for all businesses was bleak.

“Give the money back”

Although all doctors were entitled to receive the…