For-profit clinics charging patients thousands in fees: report

We’re talking about hundreds or even thousands of dollars out of pocket per patient at for profit clinics in Ontario. Healthcare advocates sounding the alarm, suggesting they’ve received calls from many patients who say they’ve either been charged extra fees or they’ve been denied procedures, or they’ve even been tricked into some add-on fees. I paid the fee, I didn’t get faster service and you see I still need glasses. Shalom Schachter says he was sold a story about extra eye testing and lenses and ended up paying close to $1200 at a for profit clinic. I could use the OHIP paid for equipment. But that wasn’t going to be the best for me, that he had diagnostic equipment that was going to identify my condition in a more accurate way. A new report highlights case studies of patients who said they were unlawfully charged in private clinics, it states. Predictably, and despite the Premier’s headline grabbing rhetoric, user charges for access to needed healthcare have proliferated. It is unlawful to charge a patient for any O hip covered service or any part of an O hip covered service. In fact, it’s illegal. Cataract surgery had the largest proportion of patients subjected to extra charges. Many patients say they were not informed the services. Oh HIP covered. 1/3 of patients reported paying 500 to $5000 per eye for the surgery, according to the report. Kate Armstrong is one of those people, $8000 later. I don’t believe it was an accident that they swiped my Visa card instead of my OHIP card. It was never actually discussed. On any level that. HIP covered any of it. The Ontario Health Coalition, which advocates for publicly funded healthcare, listed the most common violations of public Medicare laws in private clinics, telling patients they had to pay for medically needed surgeries, requiring patients to pay for add-ons not needed or covered by OHIP, and charging for preferential access to care for those who paid out of pocket. They’re seniors. They’d have to go back to work at 70 and 80 years old to cover these costs. It’s disgusting. It violates every moral that we have. A spokesperson for the Minister of Health tells Global News over the last year they’ve added 10s of thousands of OHIP, covered cataract surgeries and achieved some of the shortest wait times of any province in the country. Back to you. Thank you Karen.