Roughly 30 percent of all Canadian healthcare is privately paid for, about the same proportion as the average for the 34 industrialized countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). However, two things make Canada’s public-private mix unique....

Physician compensation accounts for about one-fifth of all Canadian healthcare spending. But physicians’ decisions, particularly those made by primary care doctors, are the conduit for the majority of the system’s costs. The incentives physicians have to promote efficiency, therefore, affect...

Canadian specialist doctors are paid mainly through fee-for-service for the procedures they perform. Nationwide, more than 80 percent of surgical specialists’ income comes from fee-for-service payments that are negotiated collectively with provincial health ministries. Surgical specialists...

Physician compensation accounts for about one-fifth of all Canadian healthcare spending. But physicians’ decisions, particularly those made by primary care doctors, are the conduit for the majority of the system’s costs. The incentives physicians have to promote efficiency, therefore, affect...

Roughly 30 percent of all Canadian healthcare is privately paid for, about the same proportion as the average for the 34 industrialized countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). However, two things make Canada’s public-private mix unique....

Canadian healthcare is facing a paradox: recently graduated specialist physicians struggle to find work, even as Canadians report long wait times for their services, says a report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Doctors without Hospitals: What to do about Specialists Who Can’t...

For many seniors, their greatest health concern is the ongoing care that many of them will need as their ability to cope with the routine tasks of daily life declines. Due to various chronic health problems or just old age, supportive services for seniors – often referred to as continuing care...

Recent outbreaks of measles in many parts of Canada draw attention to the importance of vaccination policy design, especially for children. Most Canadian provinces fail to meet national immunization targets for key diseases, and coverage ratios among children in a few provinces, where data are...

With annual spending of about $4.5 billion dollars in 2010, Canada’s largest drug plan – the Ontario Drug Program (ODB) – will become harder to afford as the babyboomers age and workforce growth slows. A business-as-usual approach to funding the plan, which provides publicly funded drug...