From December 1st – Virtual Healthcare in Ontario is Changing

As a result of decisions made by the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and the Ontario Ministry of Health, OHIP-funded virtual primary care and urgent care services will no longer be available on Rocket Doctor as of December 1st. 

The OMA and Ministry of Health have agreed to cut fees by 50-75% for MDs practicing medicine in a virtual-only environment. As a result, we do not have sufficient hours of family physicians, emergency physicians or pediatricians to continue offering OHIP-funded services in Ontario.

Our complete service will continue to be available for patients in British Columbia and Alberta, where fee codes have remained in-tact. We will additionally continue to enable specialists across Ontario to see their patients, including our 24/7 substance use services program. Click here to learn more about the SUS program. Visit our homepage here to learn more about specialty services in Ontario.

If you are an Ontarian who wants to see these changes reversed, please immediately sign our petition here and share it on social media.

Please also find your MPP here and call and write their office. 

Please copy the Minister of Health, Sylvia Jones: [email protected], the Premier: [email protected], and the President of the Ontario Medical Association Dr. Rose Zacharias: [email protected] 

Let’s work together to ensure that virtual care continues to be available for all Ontarians.

Moving forward, we will still be offering appointments to patients without OHIP.

For those patients with OHIP, we will be offering the ability to see a physician licensed in Ontario residing outside of Ontario, we will be offering this service at the same rate that doctors today bill OHIP.

We will additionally be launching a private chat service where you can securely access our new patient portal and communicate securely with our care coordinators and physicians. The patient portal will be free for those in BC and Alberta to use to book their follow up appointments.

Patients who have previously been seen by a pediatrician may be able to continue to see them, please reach out to [email protected] if you would like to check if your pediatrician is still offering services. 

For more information

Virtual care provided by MDs on Rocket Doctor has been described as, “limited care” by the new fee codes which will take effect on December 1^st. Yet, MDs on Rocket Doctor have provided service to >250,000 patients in two years, preventing hundreds of thousands of ER and walk-in visits, helping patients with no family doctor, and integrating an innovative technology solution for people across the Country.

We have effectively partnered with Georgian Bay General Hospital (GBGH) to assist them in providing care during their staffing crisis, and in fact are preventing 9 unnecessary visits to the ER every day from this one site alone.

Out of almost 1000 patients seen since we launched this program with GBGH, 95% of were managed completely virtually, with no need for an ER visit. We do not agree that this is, “limited care”.

Furthermore, a recent study examining 14 Provincially funded virtual Emergency Departments looked at 22,278 patients and found that:

• 94% rated their overall experience as highly positive (8/10 or greater)
• Over 80% had answers to all the questions they had related to their health concern and believed they were able to manage their condition.

Hospitals are currently facing a capacity crisis as patients who lack care have nowhere else to go.

We want to ask: why is a viable option being made exceptionally difficult for doctors to offer, and patients to receive?

At Rocket Doctor, we’re doing everything in our power to create a better healthcare system, and the changes to the PSA put this under threat in Ontario.

If you are a supporter of virtual care, click here then head to:

www.rocketdoctor.ca/savevirtualcare

And find out how you can help save virtual care in Ontario