Quote:
Originally Posted by curves2000
I am curious what your thoughts on the changes from AHS for services and billing for people in your profession? Is this unique to AB and a disaster waiting to happen? The savings from what I hear don't appear to be very high ($8 mil/year) Is this going to affect a lot of people?
If you are located in Calgary, accepting new patients and it works well location wise, PM your office if you wish. You have helped me out a few times in the past and can try and repay the favor with some minor visits. Pretty much just routine eye exams and no need for glasses from last visits for me so nothing important or complex.
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Typical UCB stuff. Making changes without consultation. Part of their push to make more public health private.
This is a good summary of the issues and how it affects patients.
https://www.optometrists.ab.ca/aao/about/savingvision
The main takeaway is that Alberta Health had previously only increased what they would pay us by 1% two times. The rest of that time has been flat. With inflation it is essentially a pay cut by 27% already. Overall, we had been "paid higher" that other provinces, but only in the sense that we had more testing we could cover under health care. Having this covered has really helped to reduce the burden on Ophthalmology and actually saved the health Care system money by offloading some testing to a cheaper option (us).
To be honest, it is going to lead to some extra Fee's added for previously covered services. I am working on some math now to see if I can still provide the service without adding additional fee's. For now I am not adding anything as I am a new office trying to bring in new patients.
I appreciate you wanting to support me. I will PM you some information but where I work is covered in the first post of this thread as well.