2023 Budget: Recommendations for Enhancing Cardiac Patient Care in Ontario

Ontario’s cardiologists welcomed the opportunity to provide the Ontario government with fiscal recommendations for enhancing cardiac patient care in the 2023 Ontario Budget through its submission to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs on Tuesday, February 14, 2023.

Our recommendations include:

1. Remove restrictions to telephone-based virtual care for seniors, people on social assistance, and those who live in rural and remote areas of the province that lack access to high-speed internet needed to support the use of video technology. Telephone-based virtual care services should be funded equal to video conferencing and in-person care for these patients.

2. Permanently restore the chronic disease assessment supplement for cardiac specialist treatment and care of heart failure patients in the community beginning April 1, 2023.

3. Sign a bilateral agreement with the federal government to secure new health care funding and use a portion of it to support and improve the delivery of cardiac care through the province’s community-based outpatient clinic infrastructure. The creation of a professional practice expense recovery fee for out-of-hospital ambulatory care in the OHIP Schedule of Benefits is proposed as a mechanism for achieving this objective.

We look forward to working with the provincial government to implement these ideas in 2023.

The full OAC 2023 Ontario Budget submission can be found here.