So what this interview is saying is, as a family physician, highly educated, spent hundreds thousand for education, end up in a situation where they own a practice where the books dont balance. And to a point where they are losing money because of the OHIP amount they are given each year? This country needs more transparency into where tax payers money go. I see my income taxes increasing every year as my salary increases, but the amount I'm being taxed. I can probably speak for most Canadians. We dont get it back in any form of service. This country has gone from bad to worst.

This country is in trouble

You forgot to turn off comments CBC! We know how you don’t like hearing the truth from actual Canadians.

Health is a provincial juridiction ... Ontario is one of the worst place to live in Canada

This is BS. Such an honourable profession. These guys deserve to be compensated fairly

He is 100% correct, I mean as a family doctor you are seeing every single age group so there are A LOT of different paper work that needs to be filled which is pretty horrible. Something needs to be looked at to optimize this process.

Ford’s Ontario is one with no doctors, no teachers, and lots of highways to nowhere

I left for this very reason, came in as an excited new family doctor only to face vilification from Wynn so they could cut Ohip payments, and Trudeau who wanted to ‘close loop holes’ by going back on agreements that were made years prior. It lead to me trying to have a family practice and resorting to cutting hours to work walk in because despite what they say about quality, you need quantity of patients to stay afloat, and I was seeing 40 patients in 6 hours. Eventually I realized I would be paid better in the us and left. Always looking to come back when the climate is better to serve Canadians, but it’s been 10 years…

This country is going down the drain in every possible way. Such a pathetic reality!

Thank you Dr Hijazi for speaking up. Family medicine is collapsing. Family doctors cannot be left holding the bag for a failing system, government needs to actually value and invest in family medicine.

BC changed the pay structure for Drs.a year ago. My GP said it is a game changer, not perfect but much better. The pay structure was a set fee for app’t - paperwork/admin was NOT paid for .. This new model pays for TIME, not just app’t. NOW, although they may get to see less patients in a day, they get paid for all they do .. Report JUST come out yesterday show Drs. Practicing in BC are UP !

Don’t we have a doctor shortage already?

Im a old RN and i initerviewed at a 4 Dr family practice for a job as clinic Nurse. Inwas interested until the Dr announced their flinic practice was only accepting patients from their own land. I looked him in the eye, and said Canada? He shifted around, nooooo, he meant India. I spoke with his office staff. Theyvsaid these 4 drs hirexwhite women only in supoirt roles, and the patients are all Indian. I said thats not right! They said the Drs say its permitted. Sontherexare 4 family drs is city with a dr shortage, limiting their practice by ethnic origin. I refused the job offer.

this whole conversation is a little moot if we don’t know what his take-home is. as an owner of a few small but busy downtown restaurants in toronto, i can say that my income has definitely gone down in the past few years…that’s the feast/famine of business ownership. when he says he needs to put his own money in, i’m curious to know if that reduces his income from $250K to 100K, or 150K to 65K. without context, the article is kind of meaningless. that said… that’s what we get with a trump-lite provincial government.

This is why my daughter went from family practice to emergency medicine. I once commented that my GP only works part-time, my daughter said, "No, she sees patients part-time. The rest of the time she's working, for free, doing administrative work so she can get paid." Another time I asked her why I had to make an appointment with my GP just to get a scrip refilled, she said "Would you work for free?"

Not sure how it works, but my veterinarian always follows up on my cat’s well being with a phone call or text message after the appointment, while my family doctor never. Both veterinarian and family doctor are small businesses.

Doctors don't make great money not for the level of commitment they have to give. strenuous hours, administrative duties, secondary duties. we need to support our health care providers otherwise they won't be able to support us.

So very sad. He is one of many. 😢

Welcome to the club doc! EVERYONE has seen wages go down. Almost every trade / profession has long hours and large influx of their own monies. I disagree with your plight

People just don't realize how much overhead and stress there is.

My Daughter Doctor left the profession a year ago. She was a very young Doctor and now she does not have one. People are not getting the proper follow-ups. Doctors are humans to they are burnt out. The health care system is falling apart. There is nothing left that is sacred anymore.

I'd rather pay for healthcare than be treated by an unhappy doctor.

I do not buy it. Average income physicians in Ontario 200,000-300,000$. Show it to full time engineers

Remember when Doctors used to ride miles to your house for a couple chickens and a dozen eggs?

That’s complete nonsense. I’m a nurse and I’m friends with tons of physicians. This guy is simply lying.

Cry me a river.

INTERESTING HE'S NOT SAYING HOW MUCH HE MAKES AND HOW MUCH IS LEFT???/

dude makes 250k plus a year from taxpayer money and is complaining.

Medical staffing need to be Ministry funded and trained just like the buildings they operate in. The paperwork is an issue because the provincial computerized system isn't bridged across the province. Staffing to support the paperwork is burned out and leaving the industry. Shame Ford got rid of arbitration right out the gate. Blinders on with ear's Covered is killing our medical system.

Losing Money - making 1 million instead of 1.25 million...poor doc😢

The issue-is corporate interest have perverted health care into a generic 'revenue stream'. I went without a doctor, for decades, because the doctors that were in the area were more-concerned with 'how much they could bill the province' providing service. That was after a husband/wife team that habitually booked for two doctors but only one would show up so they'd shortchange the 'visit' and say to book an other appointment (mid/late 90's)

I don't buy that - him saying clinics lose money year over year. I've done taxes for doctors. I can't speak for everyone but they've certainly not lost money. That said, doctors are incredibly important and something needs to be done. Enough with private clinics, fund public health properly and cut back on unnecessary frills and throwing money for buying specific voter groups.

Get ready to bust your a$$ at a hospital! Some Drs are doing the opposite their leaving the hospital?

Sounds like this guy just doesn't like paperwork...

😂😂 by dumping his own money he means by taking home less and less considering he pays himself a large large sum. Instead of driving a Porsche he has to down grade to a Audi. Cry me a river doctor

I’m a 60 year old family physician and I feel the same way. Can’t afford to walk away, earnings compared to other professions have dropped so much with 2 kids in university I will have to work until I am found dead at my desk. Have no option but to work for the government, and don’t get me wrong I agree ideologically with universal health care, but our own association (OMA) does nothing but let our position worsen yearly. No other profession has this. Dentists? No. Lawyers?🤣 etc…. Teachers have a strong union and have the option of working for a private school. Within medicine family medicine gets the short end of things, specialists dump what they don’t want to do on us and get paid more. Not a small part of this is complete sexism as many family physicians are female. We also have to do a lot of work for free that OHIP does not cover. We can charge patients for that work, but many don’t pay and we don’t charge prices like a lawyer or an accountant would. Imagine what would happen if you didn’t pay them, yet we are told by the CPSO we must supply those non-OHIP covered services even when patients refuse to pay. If I was advising someone young on career choice I would strongly advise them NOT to be a family physician in Ontario. It isn’t a political party thing either. I have worked under three different political parties and they all treat us like dirt, the worst though is the OMA. Supposed to represent us yet do nothing except collect fees from us with no option to opt out when they do nothing substantial to get us paid anything like our true value.

He's separating the costs for running his clinic from his revenue for seeing patients. But he's only got one source of revenue. So its an artificial separation.

Well I live in a small town and the town actually built a medical building / office for a doctor. It's very nice and it has an ambulance facility built next to it as well. It isn't huge because like I said it's in a small town and I'm thinking that the doctor will be leaving looking elsewhere. It's a husband and wife team and I have to say she isn't a very good doctor. Every time you go in to see her she sits there and Googles your symptoms. The only time she is on the ball helping you is when it can be an emergency situation and or with symptoms presenting themselves in her face where she knows she has to take steps. Not every doctor are great doctors that's for sure. She has had so many complaints and even had two or three lawsuits pending. I going to see her and she asks me what's going on and what's the problem and then she types it all into Google while I'm sitting there watching her and then when it pops up she goes oh yes it says that it could be this this and this. I'm sitting here going I could have done that at home. It's too bad that good doctors are closing their practices. I'm hoping we get a better doctor up here in this area

The economy isnt numbers... it's people.

There are alot of people out there that work as many hours for alot less.

The rise in costs he is talking about is conmected to the rise in living costs. Staff cannot afford to live on poverty wages, nor can all the staff at the suppliers. You want to make medicine sustainable? Make housing rental and purchasing affordable so that a reasonable wage that keeps up with inflation and productivity growth isnt trying to chase a housing market driven by individual greed. Get up and help please. Many businesses are struggling with this issue, not just doctors. Our cost of living crisis is hollowing out the whole economy, in my opinion.

Isn't this what Doug Ford is working towards, because it's cheaper to pay a nurse practitioner.

Why not choose a different specialty? Or set up practice in a smaller town, city where life is cheaper. I know 250.000 a year in take home is so low.

Welcome to the club. Every single year we all lose money! Very sad and undeserved treating our Physicians like this! Disgraceful

Too many women in medicine... Most of doctors work less every year .... there is no doctors on friday in most of clinics

Ottawa should do something about this. No wonder it's impossible to find a family doctor now. Stop giving money away around the world, take care our own people.

This guy made it sound like he is quitting medicine completely only to have the reporter call him out and clarify he is only switching jobs. The paperwork is tied to the patient fee that they bill. Therefore paperwork is not "unpaid". Unless he is doing it without charging the patient's health card which is unlikely.

So how much did you make last year

I don’t believe him

This anecdotal interview doesn't help to give insights into the frequency and why this is happening. One can be a great doctor but bad at running finances 🤔

Same story for other provinces.

If you're hiring and training new staff all the time then the working conditions or the pay are sub standard. Doctors are no longer getting into medicine to serve the public and make a good living. The want wealth and an easy life. Unrealistic expectations cause the most grief in life.

And how big is his house? And how many children did he have? What did he drive? Is his practice too expensive? Or his lifestyle and the salary he extracts for his family?

Wait until he finds out about all the hospital politics, drama, committees, contract changes, and staffing issues. Grass isn't always greener. He will just have a financial buffer with the hospital possibly having more funding or being able to cost shift so he doesn't have to put personal money into it to keep it alive. Hospitals close too though.

And there you have it folks. Greed at its finest. “ failing business “ : likely because he studied medicine not commerce. No one to blame but himself. “ incentivize “ : yea-against a physicians code of ethics. Looking for handouts from the government. Maybe should focus on patient care and service delivery instead of his bank account. I’m appalled.

They business does not lose money when you are paying yourself large salaries/dividends. Profits may be shrinking but he is being disingenuous with the terminology.

So he's tired of paying for bills to run a business, tired of paying people to help run his clinic, tired of doing paperwork to get paid for the services he provides, tired of having to work on the weekends, tired of putting an effort to make way more money than 90% of the Canadian population...he's tired. I'm sorry, you aren't complaining about being UNDERPAID...if so, plenty of doctors from Canada move to the states for that reason. It seems you just want to take care of patients, clock out, hang out with friends and family outside working hours. Why don't you retire? I'm pretty sure your house is paid off and you have a nice (better than most Canadians) savings for retirement. No. You're spoiled. Doctor's charge money for doctors notes and anywhere they need to sign things. I'm talking about $40 and up. Name where I can get paid to sign a small note and get paid $40 CASH. I'm pretty sure they aren't reporting this income to the CRA. Second, they are all incorporated. Meaning they are NOT paying their fair share of taxes. Someone mentioned to me that they pay the equivalent of someone making 10% of their salary in taxes. There's a reason why they 'inc' themselves. There's no min or max cap on their salary. Most doctors after a certain amount of years CUT DOWN their hours by just taking care of their 'regular' patients. These doctors often work part-time hours (a few days a week for 6 hours day), just enough to earn money to pay the bills and have time to enjoy their life. Let's face it, most doctors aren't working 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. Then they get paid for referrals. That specialist your doctor sent you to see, better believe your doctor is getting some money from that. That prescription he sent to the nearby pharmacy to fill, better believe he's getting some money for that. Doctors aren't complaining about their pay. They KNOW they are paid well. The problem is, there are a bunch of doctors who WON'T see new patients because they want that 'family work balance'. Imagine you telling your boss "Hey boss, I'll come to work on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday but Tuesday and Friday I need off. I want to hang out with my family and friends. You know, work life balance." Your boss would be like "You know what, take the rest of the week off, you're fired". We need doctors to actually work a 5 day schedule, 8 hours a day like the rest of Canadian AND not put a cap on which patients they see. Reason why so many people have a hard time finding a doctor is that these doctors aren't NEW doctors. They have a list of patients who make them enough money to enjoy work life balance. They can certainly see new patients but they don't want to. Make every medical clinic a walk-in clinic. No doctor has a regular patient list. First come, first serve. End of doctor shortage.

There's an expression that goes: 'if they knew better they'd do better'...it applies to a lot of the problems we're facing today...there are people who like to be in control and keep applying for leadership positions while the outcome of their leadership leads many to suffer...it's not that they're bad people, it's our commodified survival...take a moment to imagine our modern world with an indigenous perspective where we ENSURE safe housing, clean water, healthy food, quality education, and full health care for EVERYONE, while planning future development to be in harmony with the Earth and with each other. So kids and adults can earn a living wage from a place where they feel safe and loved, working towards an ensured basic standard of living, while achieving self actualization in the process. There's a lot to that but it is possible with our current technology and it's key to the cultural perpetuity of all of humanity.

the old days, you only went to a doctor if you were sick and dying, no insurance, no expensive preventative for crap you don't need

I think he need some financial management classes. I work with doctors in a real family practice in ontario. He is just full of crap.

What is he paying himself? lol Average in Ontario last year for family doctor was 225,380.00 He’s acting like his profits and take home salary are separate but it’s an artificial separation. Don’t believe it!

Stop hiring and training immigrant doctors than!

no context at all, what does he mean by running a losing business? you can charge everything into you accounts and say it's losing money; is it because they are all underpaid or is it just him not good at running a business? just a person's opinion. doesnt answer any question. bad journalism

Every single person is feeling the effects of inflation, not just doctors …are people getting a big greedy, maybe?

Doctors are paid well to fill out that paperwork. Some specialist are paid up to $600 to write a letter. If he is putting his own money into his “business” then welcome to the real world. What does he want ! How about hiring an accountant to figure what you’re doing wrong. I’ve worked with a lot of doctors and they get paid very well for every minute of their day. This guy is over selling his “hard day” as there are 1000s of family doctors doing well. Don’t be fooled by this guy.

Greed is a poor advisor. Or should I feel sorry for him. Poor guy isn't making enough over way more than enough.....!!!

HOW come a job in high demand be poorly paid and have shortage of available workers? There is no way that is not artificial by law makers

The bureaucratic paperwork required is punitive.

Lots of things are wrong in this country. It has to change.

its either a Private Practice aka your own clinic, Health team clinic (healthpoint, Jack Nathan etc), Hospital, or running a med spa....those are usually the options for Physicians....

So.. you pay yourself from the business that is losing money.. means your salary is too high.. you yourself just said you nake more money than most.

Bring doctors from Cuba, Colombia or Argentina. University studies and residences are almost free in these countries and medicine is even better than here. Canada needs to open to a global free market and won’t survive protecting province professional associations

I feel so sorry for these professionals. it is a thankless job that requires our upmost attention and gratitude. Pay these pros professional wages and streamline the system.

Publish the numbers.

MOAs pay a great amount of money for their schooling also & Dr's are barely paying them minimum wage which is atrocious. If you paid your staff the appropriate wages then you would get property trained staff that want to continue to work for you. As an MOA it's disgraceful that Dr's think it's okay to try and pay their staff the same amount for well educated staff as a McDonald's worker.

If all you care about is money, you probably shouldn't be a doctor.

This country is falling apart

The NDP in ontario stripped doctors of the right to strike and implemented a government organization to negotiate their annual pay decreases. The NDP in connection with this decided to take 2 months pay back from the doctors as part of their first pay reduction. This triggered doctors leaving ontario. Since then they have not had a single increase matching the cost of living. Doctors must give their employees invreases, pay increased rental prices, energy, carbon tax, increased fees for the organization negotiating their pay decreases... A pharmacist gets more money from the government for a vaccination than a doctor. This doctor was held back with much that he could have said. Basically he said the effects of what the government is doing. The family doctor mst also pay a substantial amount of money to ensure the patients records are available for up to 20 or 30 years ( not certain on the time span) This is one of the financial burdens a doctor has to stop working. They are single source income from the government with no pension, no rights to strike, must pay a government organization increasing amounts as this organization year for year reduces their pay and increases the non paid work load. Now we can understand the government generated family doctor shortage in ontario. Over 30% of the present family doctors are beyond retirement age.

Womp womp. Clearly you werent running your clinic efficiently or didnt have enough patients

what does he mean by running a business, and he has to take out some of his personal income into it. isnt that typical?

Oh no, did he have to settle for a 26ft yacht instead of a 30ft? Poor guy!

I sympathize with the paperwork load. I worked in a high pressure job as a self employed small business, not medicine, and found that I was spending onerous amounts of unpaid hours on paperwork mostly fed and Prov mandated. It was a big part of the reason I retired early and left the country for opportunities elsewhere

What happened to the one doctor, one secretary model?

Notice he doesn’t disclose how much he takes home? If he has to reduce his pay to make up the difference it’s because he’s overpaying himself. A better system would not have doctors running small business. They are not good at business just because they are (hopefully) good at doctoring.

Eventually socialism runs out of money .

So...working his private practice put him below the poverty line ? I'm sure jumping into Ford's planned privatized healthcare will make him more financially secure. Good job getting ahead of the line.

They have money management problems if they are struggling on a doctor's salary.

Welcome to private business. In the restaurant business this is the reality. Currently 61% are operating at break even or loss. Owners often have to put their own money in to keep employees paid and the business open.

I don't believe do drs lose money

Thank you Dr Hikazi for your service. This is beyond sad for all.

Simple solution is pay to people not doctors and you will see dramatic change

This guy needs a better accountant. He has no idea what is going on financially with his practice.

Family doctors all overbill anyways, they bill 15 minutes minimum for visits where they only see patients for 2 minutes. My doctor builds 15 minutes each and I've seen him go through 30 patients in an hour

But you wanted to cure people. "Come hell or high water, I will not abandon my patients". Isn't that what you said in your medical school interview? Or did you say you wanted to go into medicine to make money?

Blah, blah, blah,blah

In no other industry you don't need to compete to get clients!!

Yes, my Dr remembers well when the Justin regime insinuated he was a tax cheat. Nice guy that likely has few patients that realize how tough it is to juggle a business here. Canada is the only country in the world with socialized health care that does not have a privatized option. It would give doctors some OT and an out to make a bit of side money. What this Dr is not accounting for is the inflation and his dollar is losing more value every year. Anyone that is linked to international pricing (like medical supplies) gets absolutely eviscerated on the exchange rates ON TOP OF Justin's tanking loony due to his unfettered drugged sailor self balancing budget spending.

Thanks Doug Ford, thanks Wynne.

I'm not sure what to think of this. I'm a business woman, many years in tech. many salaried workers in the corporate world work 60hrs per week and are paid for 40 or less. Not feeling too sympathetic. If the business is losing money, is this not an issue of leadership and management?

why move... more money. HELLO! no paper work??? it's all done on site, at a turtle's pace, on SCREENS.