Governance referendum

There have been multiple Doctors of BC governance referenda in the last 15 to 20 years. Some feel the current 40-odd member Board is too large, and that a smaller board could be more nimble and effective. At the same time, the current Board may not be truly representative of all doctors. Thus, a proposal to create a nine-member board and a 104-member Representative Assembly (RA) has gone out to a vote of all DBC members. The RA would meet three times a year, be nearly half specialists, and elect the nine board members. Every section would be represented. The board would have three specialists and three GPs, and a seventh board member would balance the President elect, as either a specialist or GP. In short, the board would be four specialists and four GPs and the President could be either a GP or a Specialist. Overall, specialists are going to be much more fairly represented on both the Board and the RA. The Specialists of BC played a key role in achieving this fairness. I recommend that specialists support this referendum proposal.

Labor Market Adjustment fund

In 2010 $10 million was made available to specialty sections to improve recruitment and retention of Specialists. All sections were invited to develop a proposal to the Specialist Services Committee for access to this money. Nine sections were granted various fixed amounts and those sections created new billing codes. Unfortunately, this initiative proved too successful, and most of the sections have found utilization of their new codes has exceeded the fixed amounts they were awarded. They are now in the uncomfortable situation of trying to reduce fee amounts or utilization of those codes. Perhaps a lesson here if any new “fixed” awards are offered…

MANDI review

A Specialists of BC working group has come up with a new formula for comparing incomes between specialists. While still known as MANDI, the acronym now stands for Modified Annual (formerly Adjusted) Net Doctors Income. Nine specialty group reps and an economist and statistician from the Doctors of BC have considered many options and are recommending a two-stage cutoff to identify reasonably active full-time physicians and surgeons. After-hours and on-call income associated with surcharges will not be included when the physician is otherwise working full-time daytime hours. Daytime MOCAP is in, and the group feels this inclusion will fairly account for sessional, service contract, and private income. We are now waiting for the new Overhead and Income study to proceed. Once the data from it is available, we will be able to present this recommended formula to the Council of Specialists for approval. I implore all sections and members to participate in this study if selected so we can have the most accurate data possible. We do not want a new improved MANDI formula if adopted to suffer from Garbage-In-Garbage-Out.

Automatic membership in Societies and sections

All the sections and the GP and Specialist Societies work very hard on your behalf, and yet not all of you belong to and support your section or The Specialists of BC. We would like to propose to the Doctors of BC Board that when you join or renew your membership in the Doctors of BC, you automatically have membership in your section and Society. If all specialists were part of their section and Society, it could drastically reduce your annual society membership dues, perhaps from $450 to as little as $100 or $150, and everybody would be contributing equally to the work being done on your behalf. Please tell me what you think of this proposal. And in the meantime, please join the Specialists of BC for 2017 to receive 50 percent off your dues payment! Go to https://www.doctorsofbc.ca/account/dues