A plan to address physician shortage in the province will fundamentally change the way health care is delivered.
A GP for Me and In-Patient Care, two programs that launched Monday, April 1, are initiatives of the General Practice Services Committee, a partnership between BC Medical Association (BCMA) and the ministry of health.
The plan calls for "a comprehensive suite of supports and incentives to help improve primary care," according to Health Minister Dr. Margaret MacDiarmid. "It advances the government's 2010 promise to ensure all BC citizens who want a family doctor will have access to one by 2015."
There are an estimated 176,000 people in B.C. without a family doctor or a strong attachment to one.
The plan includes money for recruiting new doctors, adding additional incentives for family doctors to take on more frail and vulnerable patients, establishing more clinics and increased use of other health care workers to reduce workload faced by doctors.
One key feature of the plan is doctor consultations over the telephone. General practitioners will be able to bill 500 telephone consultations per year, which will give doctors the ability to increase the number of patients they can take.
A large piece of the $132.4 million in funding comes from the existing physician master agreement negotiated by government and the BCMA in 2012.
A GP for Me is based on a pilot project in three communities, White Rock-South Surrey, Cowichan Valley and Prince George, that matched 9,000 unattached patients with doctors. Doctor recruitment is also a component of the plan that was tailored for each community's needs.
