1 in 5 Alta. family doctors don't believe their practice can survive next 6 months: survey

The Alberta Medical Association (AMA) is demanding the provincial government take immediate action to keep family medical practices alive over the next six months. 

In a ThinkHQ survey of family physicians that AMA commissioned in mid-January, 20 per cent of respondents said their practice was "unlikely to be financially viable" longer than that. 

Of those, eight per cent could only foresee surviving the next three months. 

Tuesday morning, AMA president Dr. Paul Parks told reporters many practices are existing "payday to payday" and having trouble making lease payments. 

In the survey, the majority of family doctors graded the financial condition of their practice poor or very poor. A third graded their practice neutrally. Only eight per cent reported their practice being in good or excellent financial shape. 

"Right now we feel [the] state of primary care is in dire straits," Dr. Noel DaCunha, a family physician, told CTV News Edmonton. "The system is broken and family doctors are if not broken, pretty close to being broken."

An even greater majority in the survey, 91 per cent, said they were either somewhat or very concerned about the viability of their practice. 

"I'm an emergency physician, so this is a mass casualty event. This is a trauma; the patient's bleeding … out," Parks said. 

"In a trauma metaphor, the very first thing you do is stop the bleeding. I'm begging the premier and the minister to let us put a tourniquet on those bleeding wounds. Let us stop the bleeding so we have a patient to salvage and to help survive."

According to him, the AMA has asked the government to immediately provide enough money to sustain ailing family medical practices. In late 2023, the Alberta government announced $200 million to stabilize family medical practices, which would come through a deal with the federal government. However, that money isn't due to arrive until the spring, Parks said. 

"Don't wait three, six months when it gets delivered. They can find the money and stabilize our practices now."

Then, the AMA wants the government to develop and implement a new payment model for doctors. 

It calls the current fee-for-service model an antiquated system that does not allow for comprehensive care or keep up with inflation. 

"AMA feedback, including the survey, will be considered carefully as part of our work to refocus and improve our health care system," Health Minister Adriana LaGrange told CTV News Edmonton in a statement.

Parks said both LaGrange and Premier Danielle Smith seem to understand the issue and need, but that the AMA wants to stress the urgency. 

"As we go further and further, more practices will close, more Albertans will be without family medicine specialists in a primary care home, that'll drive more people into the overcrowded hospitals," Parks said. 

"Then in order to recover from that, it will take years and years to recruit physicians back and rebuild practices that have just up and shuttered and left."

According to the AMA-commissioned survey, six in 10 family doctors are considering moving, retiring or changing their practice to make it viable, including by reducing services. 

The survey received responses from 1,375 family doctors out of the 5,146 who were contacted. 

The Canadian Research Insights Council says online surveys such as this one cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population. 

Smith's government is expected to begin dismantling Alberta Health Services – the agency that oversees all health delivery – in the spring. AHS will be replaced by four bodies that oversee primary care, acute care, continuing care, and mental health and addiction. 

With files from The Canadian Press