A major limit to the growth of for-profit medical and surgical clinics in Canada has been a prohibition against physicians billing public medicare systems while also charging patients for medically necessary services through a private clinic. This has led many doctors to stay in the public system because they can’t get enough work in the private system to fully support themselves, says Cory Verbauwhede, a lawyer for Médecins Québécois pour le Régime Public, a pro-medicare group in Quebec. But the Canadian Medical Association Journal reports specialists in Quebec have launched a lawsuit in hopes of striking down the one-or-the-other rule. “The law forbidding publicly funded doctors from working in the same setting as a non-participating doctor impedes on the right of people to associate themselves,” says Dr. Gaétan Barette, president of Quebec’s medical specialists’ federation. The CMAJ reports that Ontario does not regulate such clinics and does not even keep track of h
Notes from Leftwords -- Doug Allan