ABOUT US

FundVirtualCare.ca / Extendthecodes.ca is a webpage designed to help understand how family medicine and other physician practices have been destabilized by Alberta Health's failure to pay the same rate for virtual complex care as in-person complex care.

David Keegan (@drDavidKeegan on Twitter)

My name is David Keegan. I'm an academic family physician. I'm not paid by fee-for-service, so I don't have a conflict of interest in advocating for fair pay for fee-for-service family docs and other physicians who provide complex (lengthy) medical care.

Scratch that, I do have a conflict of interest. I have a lot of medical complexity myself. In October 2020, I tweeted about how my own family doctor has spent extra time with me over the years as I have some complex health issues. What's really important is how this complex care saved my life on October 29, 2020. Read about it here if you wish.

I am literally living proof of the importance of enabling family docs and other physicians to spend more time with patients who need it. This care is enabled by paying docs more when they spend more time with patients. If we don't do that, then many docs won't be able to continue providing complex care - they simply won't earn enough money to pay their clinic staff, their rent and other practice costs, and make a living.

It's simply fair to pay people for extra work. But in this case, we know that complex care provided by family docs leads to overall reduced costs for Alberta's health system, as the patients who receive complex care are less likely to need to go to Emergency and be admitted to hospital.

It just makes sense: paying for complex care by family docs results in better patient care and lower overall health system costs.

Follow me on twitter @drDavidKeegan as I do my part to advocate for sensible and proven health system solutions which lead to overall better care at a better cost.

@AB_Fam_Doc on Twitter

I am an urban fee-for-service comprehensive Family Physician, working part time (45-55 hours per week) to care for a small practice (~700 patients). In the fall of 2019 it became increasingly clear that with the current Alberta government’s proposed plans for billing codes (how fee-for-service doctors are paid), comprehensive Family Medicine would no longer be viable. Not just a matter of making less, but rather making so little that physicians would be literally paying to work.

I love my job. I take pride in managing my patients well, being in the top of the province’s doctors for screening and low rate of unavoidable ER visits for my patients. Accordingly, I decided to fight to preserve publicly-funded health care.

There was such a campaign of hostility by the United Conservative Party government that I chose to remain anonymous on social media. Two physicians I went to school with were contacted on private phone numbers by the Minister of Health, another was audited, and yet another colleague had the Minister of Health actually yell at him in front of his children. I have young children, a non-medical partner, and wish to keep them out of the spotlight.

Funding comprehensive primary care makes sense from both patient care and financial perspectives. The evidence is robust (please see the summary from the PEER group). If comprehensive community medicine – including Pediatrics, Pulmonary, Cardiology, Geriatric and Neurology physicians, as well as others – is not adequately funded for virtual care, we will have no choice but to close our clinics. This would result in the irreversible loss of medical infrastructure in the community, leaving only more costly hospital care and corporate-run clinics (i.e. U.S. style medicine) as the alternative.

So please, if you value publicly-funded health care with a personal physician who knows you, your history, and is willing spend the time needed to care for you well, contact your MLA and Premier.

Follow me on twitter @AB_Fam_Doc or on Facebook @AB Doc.