Analysis reveals 1 in 4 top-billing doctors received federal wage subsidies
2020 was a difficult year for Canadian healthcare workers, including doctors who faced severe financial impacts from postponed elective surgeries. But a new analysis suggests not every physician was equally hit.
According to a CBC News analysis of government health plan payments to 58,000 doctors in six provinces that provide such data, the first full year of the pandemic dealt a financial blow to most physicians in Canada.
A quarter of those doctors saw a decrease in their billings of at least 20% from the previous year. One in four of those physicians lost an average of $70,000 in income; the average Canadian physician earns $350,000 per year.
CBC found some even accepted federal subsidies intended to help struggling businesses keep employees on the payroll.
The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, which was introduced in March 2020, was the federal government's single-largest COVID relief program. It offered employers up to $960 per week for each employee on their payroll so they could continue paying employees rather than letting them go when business slowed.
More than a quarter of the 600-person group of top-billing physicians from each of the six provinces received funding from CEWS.
Because the federal government has only released the names of CEWS recipients, it is unknown how much CEWS money the highest billing doctors received or for how long. However, there is no indication of any wrongdoing or that they failed to meet the requirements of the subsidy, which only required that a business experience a decline in revenue during specific four-week periods in order to receive federal funds.
CBC's analysis revealed that, on average, doctors who received CEWS payments during the first year of the pandemic billed more to the provincial health insurance than those who did not.
The average physician who received CEWS among the 600 top-billing doctors in the provincial data billed $1.7 million on average, compared to $1.25 million for those who did not receive the federal funding.
It's unclear why, but it's possible that higher-billing physicians have more personnel who are more qualified to handle financial issues like submitting a subsidy application.
Or, given that the early stages of the pandemic were so dire for all businesses, they may have had higher overhead and felt more pressure to secure their financial position.
Richard Leblanc, a law and ethics professor at York University, claimed that even though the doctors were all legally entitled to receive the federal subsidy, doing so goes against the intent of the COVID emergency relief measures.
He advised doctors who received the subsidy but later saw a noticeable improvement in their financial performance during the pandemic to honour the spirit of the subsidy.
"Do the right thing and give the money back. Because it's not their money. It's taxpayers' money."
