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Regulating Clinics – Your Turn to Talk!

Oct 14, 2015

We know physiotherapists are sometimes compelled by their employers to provide services in a way that does not meet the profession’s clinical or ethical expectations.

And sometimes business operators engage in behaviour that physiotherapists aren’t even aware of, but can still get the PT in trouble: they use the physio’s name for bad advertising or billing practices, for example.

A bad work environment can lead to poor quality care, safety issues or misuse of health system resources—and that’s no good for patients.

The problems that we see at our College are shared by many other health professionals in Ontario. As you know if you’ve been here before, our College is working with a group of partners to advocate for clinic regulation in Ontario. This is not a government-directed initiative, but came from the desire of Colleges’ to protect patients.

Of course, lots of clinics are already regulated by other regulators or other entities, but many places that deliver health care are not regulated in any way.

There are currently thirteen regulators, including us that may join in the next little while. Together, we have developed a draft proposal about how clinics could be regulated.

Clinic regulation would mean that businesses would be held to the same sorts of standards and expectations as individual health professionals.

At this stage, our proposal is aimed at YOU—do you think our proposed regulation would work? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Most of all, would it protect the public?

You should have received an email recently from the College inviting you to check out the clinic regulation consultation website.

The website has videos and lots of detail about the proposal and is set up to let you share your thoughts on the idea. Your are invited to webinars and town halls too.

Please pass this info along to your friends. Post it on Facebook, tweet it. Hey, tell your mom—I hear her Instagram is legendary.

All kidding aside, we need to hear from as many people as possible to refine our proposal so we can get it right before we take it forward to government and ask for a new law.

Physiotherapists, this is your moment!

Use the expertise and wisdom you’ve developed as health professionals to protect patients in a whole new way—by helping to shape meaningful change to the health system we all live with.

Check out the website, share your comments online, come to a town hall and let us know what you think.

Webinar ( Please Register Here):

Wednesday, November 18, from noon until 1 pm

Upcoming  Consultation Dates

November 23
*Kitchener-Waterloo
6pm – 8pm

November 25
*Sudbury
6pm – 8pm

November 26
*Windsor
6pm – 8pm

December 1
*Ottawa
6pm – 8pm

December 2
*Toronto
6pm – 8pm

December 9
*Brampton
6pm – 8pm

Leave a comment
  1. Anonymous | Jan 02, 2016

    Very well said! Just because it is physio-owned does not mean they (Reg PT’s) are saints. A lot of these PT owners focus on admin (I.e. Business side, money-making, duh) roles. Don’t forget the contracts that free them of ANY liabilities that their contractors might make at the clinic (tsk2, you poor phsyios). Why don’t we talk about start of _employment_ contracts – a serious type of business relationship? Afterall, Physios are HCP’s – that is professionals, who deserve rights & freedom at work, paid break times, hourly pay (and not split percentage like most are doing now), dental care and vacations, etc. Not a “contractor” to be taken lightly! Yeah, seriously!

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  2. Anonymous | Dec 04, 2015

    You can’t report anonymously to college. That’s the main reason we need to regulate clinics. No matter physio owned or business owned.

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  3. Anonymous | Nov 27, 2015

    I have no issue with clinic regulation, provided that it is fair, reasonable, and transparent. I do, however, have a substantive concern that the working group is comprised of senior leaders from the existing health regulators in Ontario. I think the working group needs to include other stakeholders as well, including registrants/members from the regulated health professions, to provide a diverse range of opinions and an overall broad and balanced perspective, regarding the issues involved.
    -Old and Grumpy

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  4. Anonymous | Nov 27, 2015

    Clinic regulation is only required for non-physiotherapist owned clinics. There is an even simpler solution: A physiotherapy clinic can only be owned by a registered physiotherapist. The College already regulates billing/business/advertising practices and certainly regulates quality of service delivery.

    I know, such a rule is too simple and foolproof. So, the only clinics which would require regulation would be non-physiotherapy owned clinics. Problems solved. Will this happen? Not a chance. Physiotherapist-owned clinics will be regulated, a duplication of what currently exists. The writing is on the wall that these decisions have already been made. One of my main concerns in doing this is that clearly the College feels it currently is not doing a good job of protecting the public. If they were, why would they need to regulate physiotherapy-owned clinics?

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  5. Barbara Paull | Nov 26, 2015

    That’s why we have a College. You should report these physiotherapists’ behaviour. More regulation will not change anything.

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  6. Anonymous | Nov 24, 2015

    Please do a survey, I am sure 100% physiotherapist agree with clinic regulation and 100% physiotherapy owners disagree with clinic regulation because they can’t abuse physiotherapist if they are accountable for their clinic business. My several physiotherapist friends own clinics but they choose to hire physiotherapist ( new graduates most of the time) and they choose to work only administration/ marketing job so they can misuse poor physiotherapist and his/her licence. They openly admit that. Friend of mine she is a physiotherapist, her husband owns a clinic but she openly told me that they both decided to hire a new graduate to work for their clinic because she doesn’t want to take any risk for her licence. Strict clinic regulation is very important to protect pubic,physiotherapist and physiotherapy profession in Ontario

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  7. Anonymous | Nov 20, 2015

    No need to add another layer of administration. Just don’t let business people & non physiotherapists own physiotherapy clinics. A physiotherapy clinic should only be owned by a physiotherapist who is already accountable..
    How is college able to regulate a clinic that is owned by a person who is not registered with it!! Has MVA insurance regulation for licensing clinic prevented exchanging referral fees between clinics & doctors & paralegals? I don’t think so… Why do we need another regulation?!!

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  8. Anonymous | Nov 17, 2015

    As a sole practitioner in a public hospital clinic I now spend 2 days per month reporting to the Ministry of Health to ensure a safe and accountable practice. I spend at one day a month and 2 days every three months reporting to my LHIN to ensure a safe and accountable practice. Every three months I spend two days reporting to CCAC and Firefly to ensure a safe and accountable practice. Simple addition shows that up to 25 percent of my time (a full week a month) is spent primarily reporting to ensure a safe and accountable practice. I begin to wonder how making sure patients wait for treatment for this reason is protecting them. I suppose no one would be ‘hurt’ if no one was ever seen!

    I fail to see how more oversight can possibly help to ensure I have a safe and accountable practice.

    I also note that M.D.’s and Dentists have rejected this model. I think some comments are required as to why they are not included. Largely because they are unwilling to spend the money and loose the available treatment time that more oversight will necessitate and because their respective regulators respect the words ‘independent practitioner’ on their licence would be my guess.

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  9. Barbara Paull | Nov 16, 2015

    Physio-owned Clinics don’t need any further regulation, thankyou. Regulate the baddies!

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