Contents:
Physicians
Healthcare System:How the Public System Works Physicians
Introduction to Physicians
The majority of Canadian doctors provide care in private practice and apply for admitting privileges at one or more nearby hospitals. Most doctors provide care on a fee-for-service basis. In that arrangement the doctor is paid for each service provided to the patient, rather than earning a set salary or a set amount for each person under his or her care. The fee-for-service format is especially common among specialists and doctors who see patients outside of the hospital. The fee-for-service arrangement allows the physician to decide what care to provide independent of the influence of administrators or insurers. The licensed physician is reimbursed for his or her services through a provincial agency that negotiates a fee schedule with the provincial medical association.
Not all doctors are paid by the fee-for-service format; some are paid a fixed wage, either an hourly wage or a salary. Emergency room doctors, for example, are often paid on an hourly basis. Doctors in their residency (early years of specialty training) in teaching hospitals are generally paid on a salaried basis. In Québec, a small number of general practitioners choose salaried positions in community health and social clinics. In most provinces, specialist salaries are capped at a certain level of income.” (1)