Saskatchewan doctors facing one of the largest paperwork, admin burdens in Canada

A recent CFIB report finds doctors in Sask., Alta and Ont. spend the most time on admin work, with family physicians hit hardest. Jacob Carr reports.

Twenty million — that is how many hours of unnecessary paperwork and administrative tasks doctors face annually, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

The organization’s latest report, in collaboration with the Canadian Medical Association, found that physicians in Alberta, Ontario, and Saskatchewan reported the highest number of hours (10.7) of administrative hours per week.

Brianna Solberg, CFIB’s director for the Prairies and Northern Canada, said the administrative burden is leading to burnout.

“So, in Saskatchewan, our health-care system is under strain and if you’ve tried to find a family doctor or you’ve tried to book an appointment with your own family doctor, you know how difficult it can be and that’s not just because we have a shortage of physicians in the province,” Solberg said.

“It’s because the ones we do have are bogged down with paperwork. We hear from many physicians in the survey we conducted that they’re thinking about cutting back hours or leaving the medical profession altogether because of the burnout that they’re facing.”

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According to the report, 93 per cent of doctors said the administrative burden disrupts work-life balance, while 95 per cent feel less fulfilled professionally and 90 per cent link it to burnout.

The president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Margot Burnell, says there are a bevvy of solutions to reduce this burden.

“We can use AI scribes, for example, to help decrease the burden of documenting clinical encounters within our clinic rooms across the country,” Burnell said.

“We can advocate to have simpler forms, such as streamlining the disability tax credit form, which is currently 16 pages, and we would like to see it much shorter, whereby the patient would fill in most of their journey and then we would validate that,” she said.

“It seemed reasonable with respect to their diagnosis and what we know about them.”

According to the report, other top recommendations include simplifying insurer processes, providing protected paid administrative leave, and delegating duties to other health professionals.

“Our recommendation would be to set, at a minimum, a 10 per cent reduction target, which we believe is more than feasible. What it comes down to is reviewing what’s necessary, what’s outdated, and if it doesn’t require a medical degree to fill out that form, then it should be completed by somebody other than a doctor,” Solberg said.

Seventy-nine per cent of Canadian physicians surveyed by CFIB said their work-life balance would improve if these burdens were reduced.

Forty-four per cent said it would free up more time to spend with existing patients, while 43 per cent said it would open up time to take on new patients.

The report also found eliminating unnecessary administrative tasks would potentially add the equivalent of 260 full-time physicians in Saskatchewan.