Faced with a budget deficit of $3-million, the MICs Health Care Group has taken advantage of a retirement to turn outpatient physiotherapy over to a private service.
CEO Paul Chatelain says except for post-knee replacement, hip replacement and shoulder surgery, that means outpatients of all the hospitals in Cochrane, Iroquois Falls and Matheson and their associated long-term care homes. It also means outpatients are now on the hook for physiotherapy.
“If they don’t have insurance or it’s not part of WSIB or other providers, they’ll have to pay it out of pocket, unfortunately,” Chatelain remarks, noting that OHIP actually delisted outpatient physio in 2005, but MICs kept offering it while it could afford it. He adds that there are probably more service reductions to come.
“It’s some of the budget cuts that hospitals are going to be facing, and every hospital is going to be doing it very shortly, some service reductions, and we just felt that this is an opportunity to do so.”
Here is the audio of our interview with MICs CEO Paul Chatelain:
