In 2016, more than 84,000 physicians were practicing in Canada —the highest number ever in this country. But how much were they charging?
A new report released Wednesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) is shedding light on the country’s physician workforce.
Turns out, there were 84,063 doctors in Canada and they billed provincial governments a total of $25.7 billion.
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“Although the supply of physicians and the total payments for their services continue to grow, over the last few years we’ve observed a reduction in the strength of that growth compared with earlier periods,” Geoff Ballinger, manager of physician information at CIHI, said in a statement.
“This type of information is important because by studying the supply, payments and activities of physicians we can better understand this critical part of the health workforce, whose decisions drive the utilization of most major categories of health care spending in the country,” Ballinger said.
From how much doctors and specialists earn to where they’re practicing, here are the highlights from the report.
There are more doctors than ever in Canada: The 84,063 physicians working in Canada in 2016 is a 2.3 per cent increase compared to the previous year. It’s still the smallest increase over the past five years, though. In 2009 and 2011, the country saw four per cent increases, for example.
British Columbia saw the largest increase in the number of doctors – 5.8 per cent.
The doctor-to-patient ratio is at its best: It sits at 230 physicians per 100,000 people. To put it into perspective, Canada’s population increased by 4.5 per cent between 2012 and 2016, but the number of doctors increased by 11.9 per cent in that same timeframe. That’s almost three times the Canadian population increase.
Across the board, the doctor-to-patient ratio was at its best across the country, except for Nova Scotia and the Yukon.
And more doctors are on the way: Canadian universities are doling out the medical degrees by the thousand, ushering in a new crop of physicians into the workforce. Last year, universities handed out 2,853 MD degrees – that’s a 1.4 per cent increase from the year before.
Doctors, on the whole, are getting younger, too. On average, family doctors and specialists were about 49.9 years old.
Women are getting into medicine: In 2016, 40.6 per cent of Canada’s doctors were women – 45.3 per cent of them were family doctors and 54 per cent were under 40 years old.
The face of medicine is changing – the number of female doctors jumped by 21.4 per cent between 2012 and 2016.
Yukon, Quebec, and New Brunswick saw the highest proportion of women in medicine, while P.E.I., Saskatchewan, and Manitoba saw the lowest.
So, how much are doctors making? Doctors billed about $25.7 billion for the 2016 year – an increase of about 3.4 per cent over the previous year.
Doctors earn about $339,000 in gross pay. Keep in mind, the amount varies based on doctors’ specialties: family physicians make about $271,000 while medical specialists make about $338,000 and surgical specialists earn $446,000.
It ranged based on location, too. Doctors in Nova Scotia make about $262,000 while doctors in Alberta earned about $380,000.
Turns out, ophthalmologists had the highest average gross income payments at $714,000 for specialists, while psychiatrists had the lowest at $266,000.
This doesn’t include their expenses for staff, equipment, offices and other costs.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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