Payments to doctors through MCP should be made public, information commissioner concludes

The amounts paid to doctors through Newfoundland and Labrador's publicly-funded Medical Care Program should be released, according to the province's information and privacy commissioner.

In a report released Friday, Donovan Molloy concludes that those payments are not personal information and even if they were, the information should be released anyway, because it would not be an unreasonable invasion of privacy.

• Read the information commissioner's full report

"There is no principled reason why physicians' billings should not be subject to the same transparency as payments to employees, businesses, consultants and other parties receiving funding from government," Molloy wrote.

There is no principled reason why physicians' billings should not be subject to the same transparency as payments to employees, businesses, consultants and other parties receiving funding from government.- N.L. information commissioner Donovan Molloy

The Department of Health now has 10 business days to decide whether to comply with the recommendations.

The province cantake the matter to court, for review by a judge.

If the province does not contest the recommendations, doctors andthe Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association would then have a further 10 business days to decide whether to launch a court challenge.

The medical associationsteered CBC News to a lettersentto members by NLMA president Christopher Coxon Friday afternoon.

• Read the NLMA president's letter to members

"The NLMA is now reviewing the commissioner's detailed report with our legal counsel," Cox noted in that letter.

"Following the government's decision, the NLMA will determine the association's next course of action. We will keep members apprised of our decision over the coming days."

Request filed earlier this year

Earlier this year,CBC Newsfiled an access to information request for "all MCP billings listed by physician" for 2015.

The records included the names of 1,407"fee for service" physicians, listed by name, specialty and their total billing amount for that year.

Those doctors bill the province, through MCP, for each eligible service they provide.

The Department of Health declined to provide the information, citing privacy provisions of the open-records law.

CBC News appealed that decision to the information commissioner.

According to Molloy's report, the department received "several hundred submissions" from doctors, the vast majority of them objecting to disclosure. Only 13 indicated that it would be OK.

"Many of the physicians who responded set out, in some detail, arguments about the harm that they asserted could or would result from the disclosure of the billings," Molloy noted.

According to his report, those reasons included:

• Publishing the large gap of incomes between family medicine and specialists would drive new doctors away from family medicine;
• Hurting doctors' ability to negotiate salaries with their clinic employees, or creating a bad working environment;
• Having a negative impact on recruitment of physicians to the province;
• Interfering with the "therapeutic relationship" between doctors and clients;
• Exposing doctors in small communities to the risk of "theft, vandalism and physical harm";
• Damagingtheir reputation with the general public;
• Putting doctors and their families in danger when travelling back to their home country;

Molloy rejected those submissions.

"While I have no doubt that the concerns raised by these individuals are sincerely felt, the problem is that there was little or no evidence provided to support the arguments that were made," the information commissioner wrote.