Has a private clinic charged you or your family for health care services?

The following is from the London Health Coalition:

Have you been charged for medically needed procedures like a cataract surgery, an MRI, or a consultation with a doctor? 

Has a private clinic manipulatively told you to pay for procedures that are not medically needed, such as special cataract lenses or eye measurement tests?

1. If you or a direct family member has been charged these unlawful extra fees:

• we urgently need patients, or direct family members of patients, who are willing to speak publicly about their experiences, and
• we need patients who are willing to participate in a formal complaint to the provincial and federal governments about unlawful extra fees.

Please email ontariohealthcoalition@gmail.com with the subject line “PRIVATE CLINICS” if you are willing to take part in either or both opportunities.

2. If you or a direct family member has been charged these unlawful extra fees in recent years, please fill out our survey. The survey takes most people less than 5 minutes to complete, and almost everyone finishes within 10 minutes. It’s really easy to do!

We will use the information from your survey responses to make a public report and submissions to the provincial and federal governments to stop extra user charges for patients and protect equal access to public health care for all Canadians. We will not include any patients’ names or personal information in the report or submissions without permission to do so.

Take the survey by:

• completing the online version here: https://forms.gle/F3Z8E5Kkj4iuCvC98, or
• completing the printable version

If you are using the printable version, send us your completed survey by:

• emailing ontariohealthcoalition@gmail.com with the subject line “EXTRA FEES SURVEY”, or
• mailing Ontario Health Coalition, 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201, Toronto, Ontario, MC3 1Y8.

Survey deadline: please send us your completed survey or complete the online version by February 29, 2024.

Please share this survey with your seniors’ organization, patient group, community group, friends, family, and neighbours to collect evidence on what patients are being charged in private clinics.

If you have completed a previous version of this survey, please do not submit the same occasion of being charged extra fees more than once.

The Canada Health Act says that patients cannot be charged extra out-of-pocket fees for medically needed hospital and doctor services. These services are supposed to be covered by OHIP, paid through our taxes, and provided free when we are sick or in need. However, private for-profit clinics routinely extra-bill patients by simply charging people for medically needed services or manipulatively telling patients to pay for procedures that are not medically needed. These charges are unlawful and threaten equal access to health care for Canadians.

We thank you for sharing your experiences and helping to stop the privatization of our public health care system.