Colleagues, As you are all aware, the OMA membership has been presented with the proposed Physician Services Agreement (PPSA) for ratification.
The voting period began on March 22 and will conclude at the adjournment of the all-member meeting scheduled for March 27, 2022. Many of you have reached out to me in my capacity as the Chair of the OMA Section of Public Health Physicians with questions regarding the implications of PPSA for the section members. Below please find the summary of recurring themes from those inquiries. How much of an increase is expected for Public Health Physicians? If ratified, Public Health and Community Physicians will receive the general increases agreed in the PPSA.This includes 2.01% (1% for Year 1 and 1% for Year 2) and likely 1.5-2.9% in Year 3. Generally, if the PPSA is ratified, the permanent increases resulting from the 2.01 per cent compounded increase in Years 1 and 2 will be implemented in the Schedule of Benefits, and for Alternate Payment Plans, in accordance with the permanent allocation by physician section/group, Years 1 and 2 chart. These permanent increases for Years 1 and 2 will take effect on April 1, 2023, following the determination of the permanent increases which will be made by October 1, 2022. Until the permanent increases are implemented April 1, 2023, beginning on April 1, 2022, all members will receive a 2.01 per cent increase to their pay on a monthly basis. This will continue until March 31, 2023. This 2.01 per cent reflects the compounded value of the April 1, 2021, one per cent increase and the April 1, 2022, one per cent increase. In addition, in February 2023, all members will receive a one per cent lump-sum payment on the value of all their billings from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, in recognition of the April 1, 2021, pay increase. For Year 3, the total increase will not be known until mid-2024. As such, there will be a series of lump-sum payments beginning in August 2024, and a permanent increase to take effect on April 1, 2025, and in accordance with the Year 3 permanent allocation (utilization eight per cent over Years 2 and 3) chart. Determination of the permanent increases is to be made by October 1, 2024. How are the funds allocated? These funds will be allocated by the Physician Payment Committee (PPC, previously Medical Services Payment Committee MSPC) with input from the Section. What is the timeline when PPC is going to seek input from the section? The PPC has not yet been constituted and, as such, the exact timeline for engaging OMA Constituencies (i.e., Sections, MIGs and Fora) has not yet been established. However, the OMA-MSPC has been engaged with the OMA Constituencies since the summer of 2021 to undertake preparatory work to be ready for a bilateral fee setting/allocation process that is anticipated to be established after a new physician services agreement (PSA) has been reached. Recommendations resulting from consultations with the OMA constituencies, which are currently ongoing, will be brought forward to the bilateral Physician Payment Committee (PPC).
How is the percent increase for Public Health Physicians who are Medical Officers of Health going to be applied? The negotiated increases under the PPSA will be applied to the amounts in the salary grid (not the top up amount paid by the Ministry under Compensation Initiative) How is the PPSA impacting on-call compensation for Public Health Physicians who are Medical Officers of Health/Associate Medical Officers of Health? On-call and other stipends are not part of the Physician Services Budget and the percent increases are not directly applicable to these stipends. However, given the changes to on call stipends for other specialties, the public health physicians section executive will work with the OMA and advocate for increasing on-call compensation outside of the funding increases to the salary grid. How will relativity influence the amount of the increase expected under PPSA? Our Section currently does not have a CANDI-RAANI relativity score and we are therefore currently unaffected by relativity calculations. However, efforts are being made to include our Section in the upcoming FAIR model for future relativity calculations. Is the PPSA serving the interests of Public Health Physicians? Our Section Executive met last night to review the implications of the PPSA on our membership. Our discussion concluded with consensus that while the offerings may not meet the expectations of all of our members, the PPSA will serve our interests better than an expected outcome of an arbitrated agreement. Therefore, we recommend that our section members support the PPSA and vote in favour of the ratification. I hope this information is helpful in your decision with regards to PPSA ratification. I would like to encourage you to take the opportunity to exercise your voice and VOTE on the PPSA. Sincerely, Piotr Oglaza Chair, OMA Section of Public Health Physicians
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