I work in an addiction treatment clinic. Some days I think there is little that would shock me, but then there is always the pharmacy industry. Recently we had a patient transfer to our clinic. Unlike most of our patients he was a “private pay” patient with insurance. Also, unlike most
Continue readingAuthor: Ross Sutherland
False positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Laboratory Services Expanded in Huntsville and Bracebridge Hospitals: Point of Care Testing Fails to Meet Expectations
Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC) has restored a regular night shift in its medical laboratories at the Huntsville and Bracebridge hospitals. This is a victory for viable community hospitals. It is also another example of the chaos caused by the government’s artificial prohibition on hospital labs performing medical laboratory work for
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Ontario Budget Debate Ignores Taxes and Billions Transferred to For-Profit Corporations
Ontario’s budget debate may be high profile, but it misses two essential points. With the NDP signaling NO TAX INCREASES (on the middle class) a serious discussion about taxes, particularly the need to increase corporate and wealth taxes, will not take place. It is hard to have any serious budget
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Edmonton’s Medical Laboratory Proposal: A Private Insanity
I wrote the following post as an op-ed in the Edmonton Journal, October30, 2013. I hope it plays a part in halting the privatization of Edmonton’s medical laboratories. The Alberta government is proposing to give the private sector a 15-year contract to run medical laboratory services in Edmonton. This policy
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Private Hospitals in Specialty Clinic Clothing
The provincial government’s mid-summer announcement that regulations under the Independent Health Facilities (IHF) Act will be drafted to permit “specialty clinics” raises some serious concerns. Changes in the LHINS enabling legislation will also be required. While the details are sparse the government’s stated goal is to permit the LHINs, Ontario’s
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Fragmentation, Private Profit and Home Phlebotomy
Every day there are stories of how the fragmentation of health care hurts patients. A few, when a patient dies, make the media. Most often fragmentation causes small inconveniences, but there are many and they affect patients in very real ways. December 19th’s story is about a patient with a
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Response to Toronto Star Pro For-Profit Clinic Opinion Piece
On December 10, Rick Janson, Campaigns Officer, Ontario Public Service Employees Union, published the following post in response to an opinion piece in the Toronto Star: Who should you trust? Former PC advisor shills in the Star for private health care Francesca Grosso says she is an established expert in health
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Will That Be Raspberries With Your Rectal?
The changing face of primary care is on special at Loblaws’. Primacy, a for-profit chain of primary care clinics, has 112 outlets in Loblaw Stores. Most Loblaws’ also have in-store pharmacies. The synergies are obvious. Primacy’s web site says, “an on-site pharmacy provides expert advice and services to our patients.” A
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Privatising Preventive Care – the For-Profit Flu Fight
Flu season is upon us, and it seems that the for-profit-health-care bug is infecting primary and preventative care. The yearly campaign to increase the number people vaccinated against the flu is coordinated by the public sector though the Ministry of Health and Public Health Units. After that it gets a
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Quality Program Fee Increases and IHF Corporate Concentration
This year Independent Health Facilities (IHFs) in Ontario will start paying an annual administrative fee to cover the costs of their quality control program plus a new fee for the direct costs of each quality assessment. Prior to June 2012 the Ministry of Health had paid the College of Physicians
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Health Facility License Auction Health Cost Driver
It seems so obvious in hindsight: if you want to know what is going on in business-side of community medicine look where doctors look – the classified section of The Medical Post. After reading all of the articles, during a slow day at work, a big flashy classified ad for
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Canada Health Act used in Zombie Defence of For-Profit Health Care
Andrew Duffy, in an article syndicated by Postmedia, made the logical equivalent of mixing metaphors when he used the Canada Health Act (CHA) to legitimize the use of private clinics. The result, as with mixed metaphors, is a “head-scratching” argument in favour of Centric’s takeover of the Shouldice Clinic. Duffy
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Quality Problems Plague Britain’s Largest Privatized Laboratory
The Guardian newspaper reported a decline in quality at the Kings College Hospital trust and the St. Thomas Hospital trust’s recently privatized pathology services. The report cited in the article found an increase in clinical ”incidents” in the first year of the for-profit laboratories operations, and failure to reach “ agreed targets
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Public Interest Duty Should Stop Shouldice Sale
Can Ontario’s Minister of Health, Deb Mathews, stop the transfer of the Shouldice Clinic to the health care conglomerate, Centric? Absolutely, it is within her powers under the Private Hospitals Act: as a friend of mine said, “they wrote better laws 50 years ago.” The Private Hospitals Act mandates that the
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: The Risks of For-Profit Community Care
With the sale of the Shouldice Clinic to a health care conglomerate it is useful to review some of the literature comparing for-profit hospitals to non-profit hospitals. The results show that: 1) there is a higher risk of death in for-profit hospitals, http://www.cmaj.ca/content/166/11/1399.full : 2) private for-profit hospitals result in
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Missed Opportunity: Corporate Conglomerate Buys Shouldice Center
The Ontario Government has missed an opportunity with the sale of the Shouldice Clinic to health care conglomerate, Centric Health. The government could have purchased Shouldice and integrated its services into the public health care system: after all, Shouldice was funded from the public purse. A good comparator for the
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Monitoring Benefits For-Profit Health Care
A new study by the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) in the United States found that non-profit health care institutions are audited by Medicare more often than their for-profit counterparts: 6 times per year compared to 4 for the for-profit facilities. 47% of non-profits were also audited by more than one
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Methadone Clinic Limits Doctor’s Employment
One of Ontario’s little known private secrets is that most methadone, a staple of opiate addiction treatment, is primarily provided by for-profit clinics. Last week a doctor who works in one of these private clinics casually told me that her contract with the clinic forbade her from working for another
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: GlaxoSmithKline Sets Record with 3 Billion Dollar Fine
And the list goes on. It is no secret that many for-profit health companies in the United States are regularly fined for various forms of fraud, usually cheating Medicare or Medicaid, or jeopardizing patients’ health, or both. This is the second big one I have read about this week, the
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Public Pay Public Benefits
The new graphic beside this post features logos from five corporations delivering essential medical services in Canada. The represent the reality of a broad range of for-profit companies benefiting from public payment for health services:the new focus of this blog. For the last year I have written on for-profit delivery in Canada’s
Continue reading