Nova Scotia is offering primary care physicians $10,000 to add 50 patients to their practices

HALIFAX, NS — Nova Scotia is offering family physicians financial incentives to take on new patients who are languishing on the A register of general practitioners is required.

“We are working to match people who don’t have a primary care provider with a health care provider,” Health Secretary Michelle Thompson said at a news conference Thursday.

“With this new incentive, we can match people who need primary care most quickly with a GP,” said the minister.

Eligible office-based primary care physicians who accept 50 higher-need patients from the registry will receive $10,000 from the county. For each additional patient accepted after 50, the primary care physician receives an additional $200.

Eligible physicians will not receive $200 per new patient from the registry until they exceed the original pool of 50.

There are approximately 800 primary care physicians in Nova Scotia currently operating an office-based general practice and they will have between July 1 and October 31 to apply for the new incentive program.

“They will receive 50 patients from the registry with some of the most complex healthcare needs and in return they will receive $10,000,” Thompson said. The 50 patients will be selected by the department and participating physicians will have until December 31 to ensure the new patients join their practice.

Update the registry

To facilitate the transition of patients awaiting care in the registry to the new incentive program, the registry will be updated. Starting Thursday, anyone who joins the registry will be able to complete a health status questionnaire that will become part of their registry profile.

Those currently on the list will be contacted to add their health status or this can be done immediately online or by calling 1-833-941-0040. Adding the information is voluntary but strongly encouraged by the health department.

The profile will allow the department to share health information so that the patients can access the care they need in their community while they wait for a match with a healthcare provider, the minister said. It will also help determine which patients will be attached to doctors to take advantage of the new incentive program.

At the beginning of June, there were 148,431 people on the need-a-doctor registry, and Thompson said the new information will increase the registry’s functionality and transform it from a list to a resource.

“I do believe there are physicians who, part of their hesitation for (patients) is that their practices are busy and we need to encourage them,” Thompson said. “We’re talking about the complexity of care that patients receive and so we believe that rewarding physicians for taking on some of our more complex patients is an incentive for them to take people off that list.

Will affect

“We are very, very encouraged and we believe it will have an impact on attachment.”

In a technical briefing before the minister spoke, department officials said there is no budget for the incentive program and no targets for how many doctors should be incentivized to take on additional patients or how many patients the plan can remove from the registry.

“We want to reach out to our doctors and tell them that we know they’re busy, we know there’s capacity, some practices are starting and some resources have been added,” Thompson said.

“We want physicians to look at their practices and we want to encourage them and recognize their contribution by adding this incentive,” she said. “Not every doctor will address us on this, but we want to address those who feel they have the time and space to be able to do that.”

The department says the incentive plan won’t change the way people on the registry are matched with a primary care provider outside of the incentive plan. The registry is organized by the community and people listed in chronological order based on when they registered.

Most urgent first

Colin Audain, the new president of Doctors Nova Scotia, said the stimulus program is in line with the medical principle of treating the most urgent patients first.

“It’s not just about first come, first served,” Audain said. “The people who need care the quickest get it the quickest. I think that is a very important nuance on the waiting list that has been added.”

Audain said he doesn’t know how many GPs could immediately add patients.

“Some certainly will, those who are new to the practice. Recognizing the amount of time it takes to get these complicated patients on board, it takes more time than the simple, simpler patients.

Audain said adding patients, one or 100, will benefit Nova Scotians.

“I don’t have any way at this point to quantify how much of a dent it will make (in the registry list). It’s up to individual GPs to know how busy they are currently and what they can reasonably absorb.” in their practices.”

Plaster solution

Liberal leader Zach Churchill said the stimulus plan is not enough.

“There is nothing in today’s announcement that will recruit new doctors into general practice,” Churchill said. “We’re only asking doctors who are already overworked in our system to take on more patients.”

Churchill said the government “has no strategy to bring new people into family practice in Nova Scotia and to permanently connect more patients.”

Susan Leblanc, the New Democrat MLA for Dartmouth North, called the plan a Band-Aid.

“There may be a few people who get attached to family practices, but it’s definitely not the systemic approach to attachment to primary care that we need in this county,” Leblanc said.

“I would say the percentage of people it would help is low and it doesn’t speak for everyone who needs attachment to a family health home or GP team.”

Thompson said the new plan is not an admission by the department that its ambitious physician recruiting initiative has failed. The minister said the plan announced on Thursday is another tool in the government’s toolbox as it seeks to deliver on its promise to improve healthcare.

From April 2022 to April 2023, the department recruited 168 physicians, with a net profit of 86 physicians, 32 of whom were general practitioners.

“We have worked hard to improve access to primary care in this county, we have expanded virtual care, we are piloting local pharmacy clinics for primary care, we have launched mobile primary care clinics, and we have invested in fraternity and sisterhood initiatives that make healthcare more accessible in communities in the entire province for Nova Scotians of African descent,” Thompson said.