Annual General Meeting

A bylaw amendment requires a two-thirds majority vote. This does not refer to a two-thirds majority of vote-eligible participants but rather, once quorum of a meeting is established, voting is based on the votes cast.

Relativity remains a priority of the organization and will be reflected in how fees will be allocated for both Year 3 of the 2021-2024 PSA and for Year 1 of the 2024-2028 PSA via the Physician Payment Committee process. Work on the FAIR model as our updated tool for calculating relativity is still under development via the Relativity Advisory Committee. In the meantime, CANDI remains the official OMA relativity model, and for Year 3, the OMA and MOH agreed to use the hybrid CANDIRAANI model. 

With respect to a question related to Alternate Payment Plan negotiations, our proposals for arbitration are set out in the arbitration brief and were part of our presentation to the board of arbitration at the arbitration hearing. The board of arbitration will need to consider our proposal, and any responses from the ministry in how it will decide on the issue.

See further details about the arbitration brief.

We will share the results of the member survey with members this month. The results are concerning and demonstrated an organization that had the opportunity to be more in touch and responsive to member input, but it is important to have context for the feedback we received. 

The organization was in transition when it conducted the survey in November 2023. We had a protracted period without a full-time CEO and finalizing implementation plans for a new strategy. The association was also managing a difficult move with insurance providers from Sunlife to Manulife, which had significant challenges.

With the addition of Kimberly Moran as CEO, the organization has made tremendous strides since January 2024 to advocate for the needs of its members and to improve its services through issues such as the insurance migration. We are committed to acting on member feedback and hope the efforts we have taken, and will continue to pursue, will positively impact future results.

We have a relentless approach to relationship building with government, both at the cabinet level and at the regional level through our outreach to MPPs across Ontario. It is a competitive marketplace for attention with government, but the OMA is one of the most important stakeholders for government. This is due in large part to the commitment of our members to meet with their MPPs throughout Ontario.

Physicians are seen as leaders in their communities and their voice is trusted. We must continue to leverage this and ensure our outreach is both regional and centralized to decision makers.  

We met with the staff of the federal finance minister to share our concerns related to proposed tax changes for capital dividend taxes. We followed up with correspondence to both the province and the prime minister. 

In addition, we launched a letter-writing campaign from our members to their members of parliament and we received almost 5,000 signatures on our change.org petition.

We are also working with the CMA and provincial/territorial medical associations to lobby government to change this proposal. We are hoping they will provide an exemption for physician practices. We look forward to seeing the results of our work over the next few weeks. 

The OMA is highly liquid as most of our investment are in fixed-income instruments such as GICs and bonds based on our investment policy. The CRA will not find this as an issue.

We sell top-up travel coverage through our website for physicians aged 70+.

You can speak to a Manulife representative about coverage. The line is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Please see the Manulife transition webpage for the contact information.

We agree that we need to address "scope creep" for what should be OHIP-covered services. We outlined these concerns to the minister of health and premier in both formal correspondence and in meetings with their staff. We have also shared public messaging on this through our social media accounts. 

It does seem as though the government is unrelenting in expanding the scope of nurse practitioners and have argued it is an access-to-care issue. There is a strong need to invest in family medicine and improve access to physicians as well as integrate NPs and other health-care practitioners into physician-led models of primary care.

We agree that the government has set up an unfair playing field in primary care whereby professions are competing when they should be complementing each other to provide comprehensive and efficient patient care. Right now, the issue of nurses operating as primary care free agents is concerning both from an equity point of view and from a safety perspective. We hope our efforts will result in a more integrated and coordinated approach to care and changes to the provincial and federal legislation to close this loophole that sets an unfair and unsafe precedent for patient care.