Posted on: July 11, 2023
This message is on behalf of Island Health's Physician Compensation team and is intended for physicians working under APP service contracts or salary agreements, and medical and operational leadership with oversight of eligible service contracts. Please disregard if this does not apply to you.
As per the recently negotiated Physician Master Agreement (PMA), effective April 1, 2023, all new or renewed physician service contracts include mandatory daily hours reporting, and after-hours premiums (AHPs) became payable to physicians on Alternative Payment Subsidiary Agreement (APSA/APP) service contracts or salary agreements.
Further details regarding the AHPs and the required reporting are available on the PMA page.
Hours Reporting Tool: While we work towards a more sophisticated and user-friendly tool to capture the information required under the PMA, we are asking all physicians who fall into the above categories to please use the interim excel-based invoice template that has been developed and is available on the PMA page as this facilitates faster processing times.
As a reminder, regardless of the invoice format, AHP reporting must include:
- Day of service;
- Location of service,
- An indication if services are provided “on-site" or “off-site";
- Scheduled time (start and stop times rounded to the nearest 15-minutes, and must report multiple blocks if separated by periods longer than 30 minutes); and
- non-scheduled time (daily hours rounded to the nearest 15-minutes).
Payment Processing: While we will continue to prioritize and pay regular contract payments within the usual timelines, the implementation of this PMA-mandated requirement has impacted our processing times for AHPs. For invoices submitted using the interim excel-based template, payments will be issued within 30 days of receiving the approved invoice; for those submitted using older/other invoices templates, payments may take up to 90 days after receiving the approved invoice.
We recognize that the newly developed invoice template may not capture reporting information that programs are used to and are keen to have; while we understand that this may be important information for you, our focus is to ensure we are meeting the requirements of the PMA.
We appreciate your collaboration and cooperation as we implement this change. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at Physician_comp@islandhealth.ca.