The ministry will apply relativity-adjusted increases to physician payments effective April 1, 2025
The Ministry of Health (ministry) and the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) have been working together to implement physician compensation increases in accordance with the Arbitration Award for year 1 of the 2024-2028 Physician Services Agreement (PSA).
Effective April 1, 2025, physician fee-for-service payments and automated payments in the Medical Claims Payment System (e.g. capitation, premiums, and salaries) will receive a relativity-adjusted increase for services provided between April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026.
Please note, the relativity-adjusted increases replace the PSA Year 1 and Year 3 compounded (13.0286%) temporary payment increase that ended on March 31, 2025. The value of Fee Schedule Codes (FSCs) reverted to the rates listed in the Schedule of Benefits (Schedule) for claims with service dates on or after April 1, 2025. Please refer to the Schedule available on the Ministry of Health’s website at OHIP Schedule of Benefits and fees under Schedule of Benefits for Physician Services for current FSC values. Please see Bulletin 250401 for more information.
Relativity-adjusted payments will be made on the monthly Remittance Advice (RA), beginning on the June RA. Please note, the relativity-adjusted payments on the June RA will include payments for eligible services claimed in April and May 2025.
Effective April 1, 2025, the base funding for Specialist Physician Alternative Payment Plan payments will be increased by a relativity-adjusted percent or other percent agreed to by the parties. The outstanding 9.95% related to 2024/25 will be issued in two sums – one for base funding and one for shadow billing. Further details will be provided in a future INFOBulletin.
Relativity-adjusted Increases
The total compensation increase is 9.96%, which represents the cumulative increase from Year 3 of the 2021 PSA and Year 1 of the 2024 PSA (the compounded value of 2.8% and 6.965% (Year 1 minus targeted)). The distribution of the total compensation increase across physician specialties is subject to the relativity adjustments agreed to between the ministry and the OMA.
Relativity-adjusted physician payment increases will be applied to all physician payments set out in Table 2.
FFS payments (paid and shadow billed) will receive relativity-adjusted increases based on the individual physician’s derived specialty. There are some exceptions:
- Hospital-based technical fees
- Community Palliative On-call Coverage (CPOC) fees
- Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS) fees
- Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG) fees
- Office-based technical fees
- Facility Costs for Integrated Community Health Services Centres
- Ontario Fertility Program fees
Each of the exceptions listed above will have a specific increase rate applied, regardless of the individual physician’s derived specialty. See Table 2 for additional information.
Contracts that are specialty specific (single specialty contracts) will receive increases per their identified specialty as set out in Table 1. See Table 2 for additional details for single specialty contract payment increases.
Multispecialty Alternative Payment Programs/Alternative Funding Programs (APPs/AFPs), where one specific specialty cannot be applied, have a weighted relativity adjustment calculated based on the distribution of the billings (paid and shadow billed) across physician specialties within the applicable contract. See Table 2 for the calculated relativity increase rate.
The fee for service billings (paid and shadow billed) of APP/AFP physicians will receive the relativity-adjusted increase based on the individual physician’s derived specialty as set out in Table 1. The fee for service billings (paid and shadow billed) of APP/AFP ‘00’ physicians will receive the 00_2 relativity increase (see Table 3 for additional details).
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