More or less correct, healthcare in Canada is mostly “private” with a single public payer on a provincial level. One other difference is that hospitals are owned and run by the government (with slight variation between provinces) so they don’t bill the government and are instead given large annual budgets with some incentive based payments.
Imagine the US system with Medicare as a single payer setting rates and HHS owning all of the hospitals.
Physicians (for the most part) bill the government on a fee for service basis and most do so through a medical professional corporation that only physicians and certain family members are allowed to be shareholders in.
It is illegal to charge for services insured by the government. It is not illegal to charge for uninsured services (for example some knee arthritis injections) or those not insured (e.g. visiting Americans).
I knew Dr. Day professionally, he has run an ambulatory surgical center (different from a private clinic, all freestanding clinics are “private” in Canada) for several years now and the issue with his practice is they are providing insured services (like joint replacements) charged directly to the patients. Although technically illegal, the BC government has let this happen due to long wait times and lack of political will in their voter base but this recently gone to the legal system.
Imagine the US system with Medicare as a single payer setting rates and HHS owning all of the hospitals.
Physicians (for the most part) bill the government on a fee for service basis and most do so through a medical professional corporation that only physicians and certain family members are allowed to be shareholders in.
It is illegal to charge for services insured by the government. It is not illegal to charge for uninsured services (for example some knee arthritis injections) or those not insured (e.g. visiting Americans).
I knew Dr. Day professionally, he has run an ambulatory surgical center (different from a private clinic, all freestanding clinics are “private” in Canada) for several years now and the issue with his practice is they are providing insured services (like joint replacements) charged directly to the patients. Although technically illegal, the BC government has let this happen due to long wait times and lack of political will in their voter base but this recently gone to the legal system.
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