OMA president backs physician compensation agreement

By Lincoln DePradine

Dr Zainab Abdurrahman, president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), is satisfied with a new Physician Services Agreement (PSA) between the association and the Ontario government that includes pay increases for family doctors.

The PSA builds on an existing model and aims to “reduce administrative burden, address lagging compensation and ongoing efforts to close the gender pay gap’’, she explained.“It is designed to strengthen team-based primary care, improve access to family doctors and support recruitment and retention’’ of physicians, added Abdurrahman, the first Black woman to head the OMA that represents more than 50,000 physicians, medical students and retired physicians in the province.
As part of the agreement, which runs until 2028, doctors will receive a nearly 10 percent compensation increase for the first year of the PSA.

An arbitrator also has awarded the physicians an additional 7.3 percent increase over the subsequent three years, plus top-ups for certain groups including doctors at children’s hospitals.
In addition, family doctors will be paid for administrative work, which the OMA and the government hope can improve access to care.
As well, the PSA has provisions for investments that will encourage doctors to take on new patients and strengthen incentives for after-hours care.

Both the OMA and the government say the new payment structure will help attract doctors to comprehensive family medicine, and retain those who may be looking to leave the profession.

The changes should have more physicians looking at family medicine as a good option, said Abdurrahman, a wellknown allergist and clinical immunologist
“We had a lot of people who were questioning or hesitating really committing to setting up a full family practice, and now seeing this model, we’re hoping that they will see that this is something that is financially viable,’’ she said.

“We were getting people who were not setting up practice because they said, ‘This isn’t financially viable. I can’t run an office. How am I going to pay all my staff if I’m not adequately compensated?’”
LJI reporter

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