January 02, 2023
Ont.’s decision to lower the payments that doctors receive for one-off virtual fees led some websites to start directly charging clients for virtual medical services. Other services, meanwhile, are using loopholes to charge patients for medical appointments using chat. The changes point to a shifting landscape for virtual healthcare, which flourished during the pandemic but is now facing pushback as officials and regulators try to shift doctors and patients away from one-off, virtual visits and toward ongoing care. In B.C., virtual-only care hasn’t become an issue and one-off virtual appointments are still being paid on par with what a doctor can bill when he or she sees a patient in person.