(This article is an excerpt from the General Practice of Service Committee)
Doctors with community offices in BC have invested time and expense to re-open their practices in a way that ensures safe in-person care for patients.
To help offset some of these costs, the Joint Collaborative Committees – a partnership of Doctors of BC and the BC government that includes the General Practice Services Committee (GPSC) – are reallocating funds to provide a $1,000 grant to each eligible physician who has implemented COVID-19 Safety Plan in their community practices.
Eligibility criteria includes physicians who:
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- Have an active practice in a community office that provides publicly-funded health services.
- Are paid under Fee For Service, Alternate Payment Plan, or Population-Based Funding arrangements (GP funding). APP physicians who are compensated on an hourly-based contract and have been able to claim their time developing a safety plan as part of their contract are not eligible.
- Have directly incurred eligible costs related to the development and implementation of a COVID-19 Safety Plan in a community office.
Eligible expenses include:
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- Physician, MOA, and staff time to plan and implement a COVID-19 Safety Plan AND/OR
- One-time costs such as physical barriers like Plexiglas and/or other office retrofitting/ renovation directly related to a COVID-19 Safety Plan aligned with COVID-19 safety guidelines developed by WorkSafeBC, BCCDC and the Provincial Health Office with the exception of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
How payment works:
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- Each eligible physician can make one claim, regardless of the number of offices they work in.
- Where physicians have a shared office practice with other physicians, each eligible physician can claim the grant.
- The payment is intended for the physician, not the clinic. If applicable, physicians and clinic operators should determine their own arrangements, based on the discretion and collaboration of doctors working in community clinics.
Timeline:
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- Payment will be for eligible expenses incurred from March 15 to December 31, 2020.
How to apply:
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- Complete and submit the application form in this link by Dec 31, 2020. You will receive a confirmation email upon submission, and we hope to be able to pay you within six weeks of submission.
For more information:
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- Read the Doctors of BC President’s Letter
- Check out our Physician FAQs
- E-mail us at [email protected]
