\n
The provincial NDP wants the government to levy fines and penalties against private healthcare clinics that charge unfair fees.<\/p>\n
The party\u2019s health critic France G\u00e9linas attempted to get legislation passed in the previous session only to see it voted down after Second Reading.<\/p>\n
Gelinas says even the Auditor General has identified it being an issue that needs to be addressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn her report, she says clearly that for-profit healthcare clinics often charge unfair fees to patients and request unnecessary tests for patients.\u00a0Nothing good comes of that,\u201d says Gelinas.<\/p>\n
Some doctors\u2019 groups also see the fees hurting patients.<\/p>\n
Dr. Edward Xie, a board member with the Canadian Doctors for Medicare, Ontarians are seeing more doors open to U.S.-style privatization and for-profit clinics pulling doctors and nurses out of the public system.<\/p>\n
He says the fees charges make healthcare inefficient, unaffordable and unfair.<\/p>\n
\u2018They blur the lines between necessary care and expensive add-ons. They don\u2019t improve care, but they do turn a profit on patients at a time of vulnerability,\u201d says Dr. Xie.<\/p>\n
Dr. Xie says the burden of identifying and reporting unfair, illegal fees is placed on patients and in most cases, investigations are only launched if a patient makes a complaint.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be clarity for patients and accountability. The law is broken. It\u2019s up to provincial governments to enforce this, and health professional groups need tools to ensure that our patients are protected from exploitation with unfair fees to patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ontario Health Coalition has long lobbied against the fees charged at private clinics.<\/p>\n
Executive Director Natalie Mehra points to the expansion of the clinics as the cause.<\/p>\n
She says the Ford government\u2019s promise that no one would pay for healthcare with their credit card is not holding true.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said that they would bring in guardrails that would protect patients against extra billing and user fees. Both of those things have not happened,\u201d says Mehra.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have more complaints than we\u2019ve ever had in the history of the Health Coalition about patients being charged extra user fees and being extra billed in private clinics almost exclusively.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 2017 Coalition study identified a majority of private clinics it contacted was charging patients extra user fees for cataract surgery that ballooned the costs two and three times what it costs.<\/p>\n
Click here for the original article<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(May 2, 2025) By: Randy Thoms, Kenora Online The provincial NDP wants the government to levy fines and penalties against private healthcare clinics that charge unfair fees. The party\u2019s health critic France G\u00e9linas attempted to get legislation passed in the previous session only to see it voted down after Second Reading. Gelinas says even the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,21,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospitals","category-ohc-in-the-news","category-privatization"],"yoast_head":"\n
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