Dr. Chip Bantock is retiring in June, but says new family doctor payment model is a positive step (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

FAMILY DOCTORS

Kamloops doctor feels new payment model will recruit more family physicians

Feb 2, 2023 | 4:39 PM

KAMLOOPS — Dr. Chip Bantock is getting to the end of his career. In fact, he’s officially retiring as a family doctor in June.

He won’t benefit from the province’s new payment model, but says compensating family physicians properly will be a good recruiting tool for B.C.

“I believe a lot of our residents, trainee doctors have vizualized [family medicine] with working in their residency with more senior doctors and would love to practice in that way, but economically it made no sense when they saw they needed the business side of medicine,” noted Dr. Bantock. “But their overhead is going to be covered and [allow them] to make better finances.”

The new model, which officially came into effect on Wednesday (Feb. 1), will be in place for three years. It includes $118 million to support family doctors with overhead costs.

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Most importantly, doctors will be compensated for their time, not just how many patients they see.

“It focuses payment per doctors on the work they actually do, the complexity of that work, the administrative work, teaching work they do,” B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix told CFJC Today. “And it improves and makes equivalent the work that’s done in family practices to [work] that’s done elsewhere in the healthcare system.”

Dix says it will make family practice more competitive, putting it on a level playing field to doctors who choose other areas of healthcare for more money.

“Family practice was not competitive within B.C. for other things family doctors can do. For example, be hospitalists and others,” he noted.

However, it’s too little, too late for doctors like Bantock, who’s been calling for this type of model for more than a decade.

“Governments have been trying to patch up the health system for a long time, particularly in primary care, with some great ideas, with some not-so-great ideas,” said Bantock. “In my opinion, it’s always been about a lack of physician numbers to try and replace us in various different manners has not worked, has not increased attachment and discouraged younger doctors from going into practice.”

There are about 40,000 Kamloops residents without a family doctor. Dix says the new payment model and new recruiting tool won’t bring family doctors overnight, but says action is being taken.

“We’re training more doctors. We’re bringing in more doctors through tripling the Practice Ready Assessment program, which is really important for smaller communities. We’re adding a new medical school [at SFU], new pathways for internationally-ready doctors, a new agreement with the Doctors of BC designed to attract people to family practice,” he said. “All of those are really positive steps.”

Bantock added, “It’s still going to take a number of years. I think in the short term, this will attract a number of doctors into practice in Kamloops that I’ve seen on the edge of making this decision. We still have in the Kamloops area plenty of residents coming through.”