(Government of Alberta)

By Josh Hall | @Vancan19

looking to increase surgery volume

UCP announce new funding model for acute care, critics say it’s another step in wrong direction

Apr 7, 2025 | 4:31 PM

With Acute Care Alberta now quite operational, the UCP shared Monday a new funding model for acute care is coming into play.

The government claims its new model will increase accountability, efficiency, and volume of high-quality surgical delivery.

As the UCP government pointed out, the health care system has, until now, been primarily funded by a single grant made to Alberta Health Services — a grant which, they added, has grown by $3.4 billion since 2018-19.

Although Alberta performed about 20,000 more surgeries in 2024 than it did at that time, it’s not good enough, officials said.

“The current global budgeting model has no incentives to increase volume, no accountability and no cost predictability for taxpayers,” said Premier Danielle Smith.

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“By switching to an activity-based funding model, our health care system will have built-in incentives to increase volume with high quality, cost predictability for taxpayers and accountability for all providers. This approach will increase transparency, lower wait times and attract more surgeons – helping deliver better health care for all Albertans, when and where they need it.”

The UCP also said this type of funding model has been successfully implemented in Australia, Sweden and Norway, and is partially used in B.C. and Ontario.

But not all are buying it, including advocacy group Friends of Medicare, which is equating the UCP’s announcement to a ‘voucher model.’

“Rather than getting to work addressing much-needed capacity and workforce planning for public health care, the premier is blowing things up even further with a plan to use public money to accelerate health care privatization,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare.

“There is nothing new or innovative about vouchers, they’re a long-time, ideological strategy designed to make it easier to dismantle universal public services and turn them over for private profit.”

Gallaway added, the government’s focus on promoting competition over ensuring quality should be of extreme concern to patients.

The Health Sciences Association of Alberta is also raising a red flag in reaction today.

“Surgeries aren’t just performed by surgeons,” said HSAA President Mike Parker. “It takes a multi-disciplinary team of health care professionals looking after Albertans at every stage of their health care journey. Yet today, there was no commitment from the government to retain or recruit the staff necessary to make a real difference in surgical wait times.”

Parker says the government has instead announced health care will no longer be operated as a public service, but rather as a profit-driven marketplace.

He also surmised that any benefits to wait times will be temporary.

“Once these for-profit companies successfully corner the market, prices will go up and the cost to taxpayers will go through the roof,” he explained. “Meanwhile, the number and quality of major surgeries performed in the public system will go down, as hospitals lose staff and become forced to rent public suites back to specialists within these same corporations.”

Both the HSAA and Friends of Medicare cited a report released late last month by the Parkland Institute, called ‘Operation Profit.’

The HSAA said the report shows a troubling trend by Alberta of using for-profit surgical facilities under the Alberta Surgical Initiative, including fewer surgeries performed in public hospitals compared to pre-pandemic levels, and skyrocketing payments to private companies.

“It is clear that we need a new approach to manage the costs of delivering health care while ensuring Albertans receive the care they expect and deserve,” added Dr. Chris Eagle, interim president and CEO, Acute Care Alberta, on Monday.

“Patient-focused funding will bring greater accountability to how health care dollars are being spent while also providing an incentive for quality care.”

Then there’s the Alberta NDP.

Sarah Hoffman, the Opposition’s shadow minister for health, is not on board with the government’s announcement.

“Today’s announcement by the premier and the health minister is not about better patient care. It’s about creating more privatization – more private hospitals and more private surgical centres. They want us to believe the public system isn’t good enough and they are working hard to make sure that it isn’t good enough,” she said in a statement to rdnewsNOW.

“At the same time, they are doubling down on private health care which we know costs all Albertans more, is less efficient and excludes those most in need of care.”

rdnewsNOW asked the Ministry of Health for a comment regarding the comments of FoM and HSAA.

“The Friends of Medicare statement is a wilful falsification. Patient-Focused Funding is not a voucher system; it’s a well-established way of funding hospitals based on the number of patients they treat and their needs, used in publicly funded health systems in other countries including Australia and Norway, and in BC, Ontario, and Quebec,” the health minister’s office says.

“The fact that FoM and HSAA take the same position on this issue—or any other issue—is hardly surprising, as the vice-vhair of FoM’s board is a representative of HSAA. The board also includes representatives of the ATA, AUPE, CUPE, UNA, and the Congress of Union Retirees of Canada. FoM is not an impartial expert group; it represents and speaks for the major public unions.”