Cutting Red Tape Could Let Canadian Doctors Provide 55.6 Million More Patient Visits per Year: Report

A health-care worker makes his way into the Emergency Department of the Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver on March 30, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward)

Physicians in Canada are collectively spending some 18.5 million hours a year on unnecessary paperwork and administrative tasks, according to a report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

That time could be used to provide the equivalent of 55.6 million more patient visits annually, according to “Patients Before Paperwork,” a new CFIB report released on Jan. 30.

The report notes that the country’s health-care system is facing multiple complex challenges including “a chronic shortage of health professionals, an aging population, and capacity constraints.”

“Red tape” is consistently identified “as an obstacle that detracts from patient care and contributes to physician fatigue and burnout,” said the report. It added that this burden impacts patient care by limiting the time doctors can spend with existing patients and the number of new patients doctors can take on.

Keir Johnson, spokesperson for Doctors Manitoba, told The Epoch Times that the report “used a very comprehensive study” to estimate the administrative burden on Canadian doctors.

The report uses data from a 2020 study conducted by Nova Scotia’s Office of Regulatory Affairs and Service Effectiveness as a benchmark to estimate the total physician red tape in each province and territory as well as the number of patient visits that could take place if this administrative burden was eliminated.

The data indicated that each doctor in N.S. spends the equivalent of more than one full day per week, or 10.6 hours, completing administrative tasks. That would amount to an equivalent annual total of 1.36 million hours that a doctor could instead use to accommodate 1.73 million patient visits annually.

“Unnecessary tasks include work that could be eliminated entirely as well as work that does not require a physician’s clinical expertise and could be done by someone else,” said a Jan. 30 CFIB news release announcing publication of the report as part of the organization’s 14th annual Red Tape Awareness Week.

Examples provided include requiring doctors to complete “lengthy and redundant forms and processes,” and time-consuming tasks like “filling out overly complicated paperwork for insurance companies.”

Red Tape

Nova Scotia has set a target to reduce administrative burden on doctors by 10 percent by 2024, with a goal of freeing up roughly 50,000 hours of physician time a year, or the equivalent of 150,000 patient visits.

To achieve this goal, the province said it will work with doctors to identify specific forms and processes that can be shortened, eliminated, or done by someone other than a doctor, according to the report.

CFIB suggests that other provincial and territorial governments also work with their respective medical associations to try to reduce physician red tape.

Johnson said the government of Manitoba has just announced “a joint task force with Doctors Manitoba to measure and reduce administrative burdens for physicians.”

The task force will work to find specific solutions to help doctors in that province eliminate unnecessary paperwork.

“Red tape hurts everyone, and we should be looking to reduce it wherever we can especially where it promises to free up time in areas we care about,” said Laura Jones, CFIB executive vice-president and co-author of the report, according to the news release.

“Whether we are talking about health-care availability or housing affordability, red tape reduction should be part of the solution. This is common sense that is too often overlooked,” Jones said.

The news release said that in a recent CFIB survey, conducted in November 2022, 88 percent of small business owners said addressing health-care challenges should be a top priority for governments.

A CFIB survey conducted just two months earlier, in September 2022, reported that 60 percent of respondents said addressing health-care challenges, such as shortages of staff, emergency rooms, and ambulances, should be a top government priority.

The CFIB is the country’s largest non-profit association of small businesses that advocates for policy change at various levels of government.