Sample – Letter #1

To Patients Advising Of Implementation Of Charges For Uninsured Services.

Dr. [enter name]

OFFICE POLICY ON CHARGING FOR SERVICES NOT COVERED BY OHIP

[Insert Date]

Dear Patients:

As your family physician, I strive to deliver the best care possible to all my patients under increasingly difficult financial limitations. The costs of running and maintaining my medical practice continue to increase at a greater rate than the rate of payment for services to you, my patients. Unfortunately, this situation is one of the reasons for our shortage of family doctors.

For many years, I have not charged any fee for certain services not covered by the provincial medical insurance plan, OHIP, even though I was entitled to charge patients directly for these services. However, because of the current financial costs of running my practice I will now be charging for all services not covered by OHIP. In addition, I will be charging for other third party requests made on your behalf. If these third parties such as insurance companies, your lawyer, or your employer do not pay for these services, the costs related to the services will be your direct responsibility. Some of these services include for example, back to work notes, insurance forms, special medical examinations etc. Attached to this letter is a list of most of the uninsured and third party services for which I will be billing patients or their agents directly.

To avoid any confusion about payment for these uninsured services, it is important that you state the reason for your visit at the time of making an appointment. As you have come to expect, medically necessary services will be covered by OHIP. My office staff will endeavor to inform you at the time of your call if any service you are requesting is not covered by OHIP and what charges, if any, will be payable directly to you.

In the next few weeks, I will be sending you details of a new program that I am setting up in my practice to deal with these charges for uninsured services in the most convenient and cost effective manner for you, my patients. You should know that before setting up this program, I consulted with other family physicians and my professional organizations to ensure the program follows the guidelines established with respect to billing for uninsured services. Please read the material I send you carefully and understand that I would prefer, as would you, that all such services were fully paid by OHIP. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I want to thank you for the trust you have placed in me as your family doctor and I thank you also for your understanding.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. [enter name]