To reduce the absurd administrative burdens preventing family doctors from seeing more patients, the Quebec government will make an easy but important gesture by reducing through a bill the incessant paperwork linking general practitioners to insurers with, stuck in between, ill people.
Radio-Canada told us on Wednesday that the Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, intends to table a bill in the National Assembly whose adoption could free up, as if by magic, between 300,000 and 700,000 appointments with doctors whose frontline access window (GAP) is still sorely lacking. By significantly reducing the number of forms required from insurers to guarantee healthcare coverage, the bill would free up up to 25% of doctors’ work weeks. It is not negligible.
Before welcoming the legislative initiative which will alleviate these administrative tasks, let us first emphasize the absurdity of the current context. An employee breaks an arm? Even if the doctor already knows that recovery will take at least eight weeks, the insurance company covering the compensation may require a visit to the doctor every three weeks, so that he can confirm that there is still disabled. Another employee must use the services of a psychotherapist covered by her insurer? This will require that this treatment be endorsed by a form signed by a doctor. The desire of insurers to control costs and their fear of giving in to abuse end up congesting the health system.
In a survey carried out in 2022 by the Federation of General Practitioners of Quebec, we learned that Quebec doctors spend a quarter of their time filling out forms. As part of its 14e edition of its Paperwork Awareness Week — a real real week, you swear! —, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business affirmed in 2023 that “Canadian doctors collectively spend approximately 18.5 million hours per year on unnecessary paperwork and administrative tasks, the equivalent of 55.6 million consultations per year. The problem is real.
And the solution is apparently within our reach. An “easy” bill, according to the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, which should not arouse anything other than unanimity. Faced with the news, groups of insurers said they were favorable to the spirit of the bill, while pleading for possible exceptions. This government action intended to put an end to administrative abuses is in addition to a first step taken last February, when the administrative requirements for access to a CHSLD or coverage by the CNESST were reduced.
The Minister of Health estimates the number of appointments that the bill will free up at around 500,000. But he is not sure, because – incredible, but true – he does not have access to this data. Another fog of which Quebec has the secret. A new regulation published this week in the Official Gazette of Quebec provides, however, that doctors will now have to transmit their availability times to the government. As long as this does not lead to further administrative burden, this is an excellent measure.