Premier Danielle Smith and MLA Justin Wright held a public town hall on Wednesday. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

Premier Smith says new Alberta family doctor pay structure will be revealed in ‘weeks’

Oct 9, 2024 | 8:53 PM

Premier Danielle Smith says a new pay structure for Alberta family doctors that physicians say they’ve been waiting on her health minister to approve will be revealed “in the coming weeks”.

Smith, who was speaking at a town hall in Medicine Hat on Wednesday, did not give a specific date for such an announcement.

The proposed funding model aims to help more doctors open clinics by covering some of the overhead costs, the Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA said.

“It takes away the headache of having to worry about paying the utilities and being able to have the money to hire staff and create family care clinics,” Smith said.

The United Conservative government collaborated with the non-profit Alberta Medical Association over the past year to create the Physician Comprehensive Care Model.

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Implementation of the new model was only waiting on approval from Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, according to AMA president Dr. Shelley Duggan.

“We, of course, have been planning for it to be rolled out,” Duggan told CHAT News on Wednesday before Smith’s town hall.

“We were quite hopeful it would be rolling out as of January, and so our machinery in the background is getting ready for that,” she added.

“Unfortunately, we have no timeline.”

Smith was describing what her government was doing to address the shortage of family doctors in response to a question from a member of the public.

She said that, of the 11,700 doctors in the province, 5,500 are classified as family physicians but only about 2,500 have practices.

“So we’re seeing that we have a very large pool of doctors but a very small number that are providing primary care,” Smith said, saying the new funding model aims to entice more doctors to set up shop.

The province is also granting nurse practitioners — who are able to carry out many of the same tasks as a family physician — the ability to open clinics.

Smith said 50 nurse practitioners are in the process of getting approval from the Alberta health ministry to start practising.

Alberta pharmacists have had their role expanded “more than anywhere else in the country” to help with taking the burden off clinics and hospital emergency rooms.

“We’re trying to give every health professional an expanded scope of practice,” Smith said.

“We want to make that every person is attached to a valid practitioner because that should be the point of entry when you’re sick,” she added.

“What we’re finding is when we don’t have those options, the first point of entry is a hospital emergency room and that’s why our hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed.”