Quebec’s health minister and the federation of general practitioners have reached a deal in relation to the province’s plan to improve access to health care.

Gaetan Barrette and Dr. Louis Godin, president of the federation, have agreed that GPs will have until Dec. 31, 2017 to reach the productivity goals outlined in Bill 20. If 85 percent of Quebecers - up from around 68 percent now - have family doctors by then, the law won’t apply to them.

The deal is seen as a good compromise to one doctor who considered the proposed patient quota requirement as "completely unrealistic."

“I’m cautiously optimistic," said Dr. Robin Coombs, a family doctor. "The steps seem to be good. There is this caveat in place that they have the option of putting Bill 20 in place at any point but it looks like we’ve been given a window in time to improve the health care for our patients."

The GPs won’t have more money or resources. They are planning on reaching the targets by reorganizing the way they work.

That means they are committing to a series of measures, including spending less time at hospitals and more time in clinics and will take on more patients and try to better manage their time.

“There’s a strong engagement from Dr. Godin and his organization to move many doctors from their actual practices to advanced access. In advanced access, you have your appointments in three days. I’m not saying we’re going to have that specifically, but we’ll [try to get] close to that by Dec. 31, 2017,” he said.

Godin was asked what measures would be taken to make sure that individual doctors increase their patient load. “We’ll take the necessary steps to ensure that the doctors take part and that they don’t make it the work of the doctor next door,“ said Godin.

Other measures include:

  • Digitizing medical records – The federation says its members who have digitized their patients' medical records are more efficient while experiencing a significant gain in productivity and reduced risk of error.
  • Interprofessional collaboration – Join forces with nurses, psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists and others in a same clinic.
  • Superclinics – Create 100 superclinics to help alleviate overcrowding in emergency rooms. These clinics would bring together family physicians with medical specialists, nurses and other health professionals. They would have medical imaging equipment, laboratories and operate on, extended opening hours to allow access to a family doctor quickly for semi-urgent matters.

Last year, the federation criticized the bill, saying there is no guarantee that forcing doctors to take on more patients would improve access to family doctors, and it could compromise quality of care.

The Quebec college of physicians applauded the deal, saying it was "reasonable" and that it would "ensure Quebecers will be able to obtain quality health care in a reasonable amount of time."