Opinion: Let's get new pay model for family doctors to the finish line

Our premier and health minister have both stated that Alberta’s health-care system should be the best in the West. Physicians and Albertans agree.

In previous years, Alberta’s health-care system was not only the best in the West, but also the envy of Canada and most of the world. We enjoyed the Alberta Advantage because our health-care system was built upon a rock-solid primary care foundation. Objective data showed our innovative primary care networks were cutting-edge in supporting robust family medicine care. We invested in longitudinal, cradle-to-grave family medicine, and this allowed us to build world-leading medical care in all areas of specialization across the province. Highly specialized care relied on robust and thriving primary care and vice versa. We cannot have one without the other.

Unfortunately, over time we lost our way. We made more and more investments in super-specialized areas of care and forgot about focusing on keeping Albertans healthy in the first place. Without investing in robust primary-care medical homes, led by our highly trained family medicine specialists and rural generalists, all we can offer is highly specialized sickness care. It’s a sickness system where all roads lead to overcrowded emergency departments while delays to all forms of high-quality medical care grow and grow.

But all is not lost. The medical profession has rebuilt relationships with government, and we have agreement on the pathway for a return to the Alberta Advantage and becoming the best in the west again. It isn’t complicated. Becoming the best requires three steps: 1. tackle tough issues; 2. seek solutions with experts; 3. follow through, step on the gas to get it done, and don’t stop until the finish line is in the rearview mirror.

In the ongoing crisis of access to family and rural generalist physician care, the first two steps are already complete. We have a shared understanding that Alberta’s family and rural medicine practices are no longer viable and, indeed, are at the breaking point. The deterioration is further demonstrated with 800,000 Albertans who do not have access to a family or rural medicine specialist.

Government has been working with the Alberta Medical Association to tackle the complex issues that have led so many Alberta physicians to withdraw from comprehensive care or leave the province. Through collaboration, physician leaders and government have sought solutions with a new physician payment model and have been able to issue interim funds to help stabilize practices until that work is complete.

The hard work is done. We have a new Physician Comprehensive Care Model that will do what is so desperately needed across Alberta: keep family medicine practices viable and thriving and allow our highly skilled and caring family physicians and rural generalists to provide lifelong primary care to Albertans.

With this new model, we will not only achieve best in the West, but we will also retain the amazing physicians we currently have. Once again, we can be a destination of choice for physicians and attract new colleagues to the province where patients are waiting for them. More Albertans will have access and attachment to a family physician or a rural generalist, and we will be able to repair the foundation of our struggling health-care system.

We are at Step 3. We must bring this across the finish line and implement the new funding model as quickly as possible. Alberta can no longer afford to delay. We’ve come a long way in a short time with government and Alberta Health but it’s time to commit. Finalize the new model. Invest in a family and rural medicine system that provides comprehensive, lifelong care.

Reclaim the Alberta Advantage. Patients and Albertans deserve no less.

Dr. Paul Parks is president of the Alberta Medical Association.