UPDATED: Alberta government spending millions of dollars to improve access to primary care

The Alberta government will be allocating $57 million over three years for administrative support to family doctors and nurse practitioners as one of its recommendations for improving primary care. Each provider has the potential to receive up to $10,000 annually. “Today marks an important step in the work I am undertaking to enhance primary care as the foundation of our healthcare system,” said Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange in a Wednesday press release. “The Modernizing Alberta’s Primary Health Care System (MAPS) reports clearly identify the challenges our system is facing, and their release signals this government’s commitment to take immediate and ongoing action to support and stabilize primary healthcare in our province.” LaGrange said she will “look forward to the ongoing work of implementing needed changes with our healthcare partners and providers.”Primary care is the first point of contact Albertans have with the healthcare system and includes professionals such as family doctors, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists. The first recommendation the Alberta government said it is acting on is creating a primary care division within Alberta Health. It is forming a task force with key partners such as the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), the College of Alberta Family Physicians, and the Nurse Practitioners Association of Alberta. This task force will create a new compensation model for family medicine and reduce the administrative workload for providers so they can spend more time with their patients. The Alberta government went on to say it is developing a memorandum of understanding with the AMA to collaborate on a transition to a new physician compensation model, modernize primary care governance, and enable family doctors to spend more time with patients. When it comes to expanding mental health services, it said it will allow doctors to bill for virtual mental health checks and therapies and compensate them for this extra time. It is going to ensure doctors get paid if patients cannot provide insurance coverage, reducing administrative burdens. This is known as good faith claims. It will introduce a payment system that will support nurse practitioners to open their own clinics, take on patients, and offer services based on their scope of practice, training, and expertise. Healthcare leaders and experts from across Canada and around the world came together to form advisory panels as part of the MAPS initiative. The panels identified immediate and long-term improvements to strengthen the primary care system.The Alberta government said it will begin moving forward on the recommendations in the final report to improve access to primary care for all Albertans. It added the recommendations will be implemented through a phased approach, with several moving forward immediately and followed by medium- and longer-term improvements that will enhance primary care across Alberta. Recommendations being implemented immediately include seven of the 11 recommendations to strengthen primary care and four of the 22 to strengthen indigenous healthcare. It said these recommendations are critical to ensuring Albertans have better access to healthcare when and where they need it. “The MAPS recommendations represent a huge leap forward for our primary health system — strengthening and clarifying governance, community involvement, and recognizing the importance of integrated team-based care that allows Albertans to access primary care from the most appropriate team member at the right time, in the right place,” said MAPS Strategic Advisory Panel Co-Chair Dr. Janet Reynolds. “This is how we can ensure equitable access to care across our province.”Alberta Indigenous Relations Minister Rick Wilson called it “unacceptable that indigenous peoples continue to face so many barriers when accessing primary healthcare.”“It is crucial that all First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples have equitable access to community-based primary healthcare that is culturally safe, respects their unique needs and is free of racism,” said Wilson. “These immediate actions will help us achieve that goal.” The first recommendation the Alberta government said it has started on with this front is creating an indigenous health division within Alberta Health. It said it will create a $20 million fund for indigenous communities to develop and run their own innovative primary healthcare services and projects. To address concerns indigenous people face while interacting with the healthcare system, it will create an indigenous patients complaints investigator. This work will include forming an elders roster to guide indigenous people through the complaints process. It is setting up a community-based indigenous patient navigator program to support indigenous people throughout their healthcare journey. LaGrange followed up by saying the Alberta government is recruiting more healthcare workers. "I was in PEI with the ministers from right across Canada, and we're all going through the same exercise," she said. "Every body is looking for more healthcare professionals right across all the gamuts, whether it's nurses, doctors, healthcare aides, etc."When it comes to family physicians, she said it has hired 509 of them. However, that is not enough.The Alberta government said in February it will spend more than $2 billion on primary care in Budget 2023.READ MORE: UCP spending $2 billion on Alberta’s primary health care system in Budget 2023“I am pleased to be here to announce Budget 2023 would make a historic investment in Alberta's primary care system,” said former Alberta health minister Jason Copping. “As you know, the government has a vision for the future of our healthcare system.”

UPDATED: Alberta government spending millions of dollars to improve access to primary care

Related Stories