Neither the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) nor the province have spoken publicly following an announcement late Friday that the parties had reached a tentative agreement after nearly three years of strained relations. An information packet sent to doctors by the AMA and obtained by CBC News outlines the terms of this proposed agreement. Included is a promise that if the government relinquishes its power to unilaterally strike down a physician contract — as the UCP government did in February 2020 — the AMA will drop a lawsuit against the province. “The AMA’s lawsuit will only end when this legislation is passed after the agreement is ratified,” the documents state. The UK Conservative Party government imposed a new deal on doctors in April 2020 that changed the way they are paid for their work and cover their expenses. An attempt to negotiate a new agreement failed in March 2021, when Alberta doctors voted to reject the offer. The AMA president at the time said a sticking point was the inability to take unresolved issues to binding arbitration. The doctors were also upset that the government said it would withhold part of their pay if the province exceeded its annual budget for doctors’ fees, set at $5.5 billion this year. Information obtained by the CBC indicates that doctors will not be held liable if their charges exceed this value. It says the four-year deal includes a one per cent rise in billing rates each year from 2022 to 2025 and a one per cent lump sum payment in 2022-23. A new commission will try to negotiate physician billing rates after 2025. Those rates could increase or decrease based on rates in other provinces, the documents said. The AMA and the government will negotiate compensation for the fourth year of the agreement. Either side may request mediation and binding arbitration if deadlocked. “This four-year agreement allows time to rebuild the relationship between the physicians and Alberta Health,” the document says. “The agreement provides a structure for the parties to work to address challenges, issues and disputes that may arise.”
Some terms to be negotiated later
The proposed new agreement would continue pay for doctors working in Alberta Health Services facilities, such as hospitals, for two years. In 2019, the government proposed to end these scholarships. On March 31, 2020, the government stopped paying doctors when medical staff could not determine an Alberta Personal Health Number for the patient. These are called “good faith claims,” and critics said the change could hurt vulnerable and poor people without health care cards. The proposed agreement now says doctors can bill certain bona fide claims, retroactive to April 2022, through an application process. The government also limited the number of patients most doctors could see per day to 65, which it said was for safety reasons. The agreement would commit a committee to conduct an expedited review of that policy within 60 days of ratification. The deal would also put other points of contention before joint committees and committees, pushing the resolution even further down the line. That includes decisions about how much doctors should be paid for virtual mental health care and how to handle future pay for hospital-based specialists. Neither the government nor the AMA responded to questions about the proposal on Monday. In a public letter on Friday, AMA President Dr. Vesta Michelle Warren, said the organization’s board strongly recommends that doctors vote in favor of the offer. Voting starts on Tuesday and will run until September 28. “We share the same goals of stabilizing the health system, including the medical practices that are part of the infrastructure and targeting other areas of concern,” Warren said in a joint statement with Health Secretary Jason Copping on Friday.
