Premier Danielle Smith and Alberta’s health minister are set to announce details on an updated pay model for family physicians Thursday afternoon.
The announcement will take place at 1:30 p.m. from Calgary’s McDougall Centre.
Health officials have been calling for a new compensation model for more than a year now.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange has publicly stated a new model would be in place this fall.
In the meantime, a memorandum of understanding was signed last October.
Medical organizations like the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) and Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) have since been sounding the alarm on the family doctor situation.
In a report released Tuesday, CIHI found the number of new family doctors working in the country has slowed.
It says the growth rate of family doctors dropped from nearly three per cent in 2015 to 2017 to one per cent in 2021 to 2023.
The AMA estimates about 700,000 Albertans didn’t have a family doctor in 2023 and has seen doctors make the decision to close their practices because they haven’t seen a new funding model announced or activated.
The former president of the association said this earlier this summer the new model was ready to go and moves away from a ‘fee for service’ model.
He said it will be a blended payment model based on how many patients doctors have and how complex they are.
The announcement will be livestreamed here on CTV News Calgary.
With files from CTV News’ Dorcas Marfo and Amanda Anderson