The Ontario government has announced a tentative new fee agreement with the province's physicians. The deal puts a cap on their overall pay for two years, cuts spending by reducing unnecessary tests, and compensates doctors for communicating with patients electronically. The agreement, which was unanimously endorsed by the Ontario Medical Association's board of directors, would freeze total funding for physician services at $11 billion a year for two years, putting a cap on the second-largest item in Ontario's health care budget.
The estimated savings allowed the government to limit an across-the-board fee cut for doctors to only 0.5 percent, while reversing a few of last spring's universal fee cuts and providing $100 million over the next two years to pay for new doctors. The agreement also contains measures that significantly curtail the government's ability to unilaterally impose changes to doctor's pay through regulations.
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