FPSC Work Plan & Budget 2021/22

Table of Contents

  1. Our mission, vision & mandate
  2. Areas of focus 2021-22
  3. FPSC work plan & budget 2021-22

Our mission

Our mission is to strengthen longitudinal family practice as the foundation of an integrated system of care.

Our strategic vision

Our strategic vision is to enable access to quality primary health care that effectively meets the needs of patients and populations in BC, using the patient medical home (PMH) as the foundation for care delivery within a broader, integrated system of primary and community care. The PMH represents the ideal team-based family practice, and it is the foundation of Primary Care Networks (PCN). PCNs include PMHs, health authority and First Nations community-focused programs, and other community-delivered primary care services, all working together to deliver improved patient-centred care. 

Our mandate

FPSC is the vehicle for representatives of government, Doctors of BC, and BC Family Doctors to work together on matters affecting the provision of services by family physicians (FPs) in British Columbia. The GPSC identifies changes in current physician service delivery that could result in improvements in patient care, more effective utilization of physician and other healthcare resources, and measurable savings in expenditures. It supports the integration and alignment of physician services with other health service delivery, and encourages appropriate collaborative practice with other physicians and integration of physicians with other health professionals. The committee also provides incentives for FPs to provide full-service family practice and benefit patients.

Read more about FPSC here.

FPSC Membership

The list of FPSC members and their biographies is posted here.

Areas of focus for 2021-22

In addition to ongoing work to support physicians in providing longitudinal care through incentives, practice support, and networking support through divisions, the GPSC addressed these emerging needs of family physicians:

1. Physician leadership

The GPSC provided opportunities for physician leadership development and capacity building for PCN implementation.

2. COVID-19

Primary care responded to new challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, which profoundly affected family doctors and their practices. As the leading collaborative table for primary healthcare transformation in BC, the GPSC continued working with physicians and divisions to support effective pandemic preparedness planning and the delivery of safe and appropriate care.

3. Physician wellness

Physician wellness is fundamental to a well-functioning, quality primary care system. Physician stress and burnout have been growing for many years and COVID-19 has exacerbated these trends. The worsening opioid crisis continues to impact communities, first responders and primary care providers. The GPSC’s initiatives are intended to provide financial and in-practice supports and services to ease burden, recognizing this is only part of the broader system supports that are needed. In coordination with Doctors of BC and the Joint Collaborative Committees, the GPSC worked to address physician burnout and improve physician health and wellness.

4. Cultural safety and anti-racism

Systemic racism has been raised as a significant issue in health care across BC. Primary care providers have a key role to play in addressing these issues as members of clinical teams, providers of direct care to patients, and leaders in the health system. The GPSC is committed to promoting cultural safety and humility, and addressing system racism. The GPSC worked across the Joint Collaborative Committees to provide cultural safety and anti-racism learning opportunities for physicians.

5. Mental health and addictions

Recognizing the ongoing impacts of the opioid crisis on communities and providers, the GPSC continued to support physicians to access mental health and addiction continuing education opportunities, and improve linkages between primary care and mental health and addiction services.

FPSC Work plan & budget 2021-22

Total budgeted 2021/22: 

 $ 178,554,839

Most of the GPSC’s resources, tools, and supports go directly to physicians through payments and incentives to support longitudinal care, incentives, supports for practice level QI and change management, and payments to divisions for infrastructure, change management, networking and clinical programs such as the Long-Term Care Initiative, and enhancing in-patient care. Also included are the costs of staffing, including those who work directly with physicians in practice, and those who work in supporting the divisions of family practices. A smaller proportion of funding goes to the central team that supports the GPSC programs, and is involved in the development and monitoring of GPSC programs, initiatives, and activities. More details, as well as a budget breakdown, is presented in the sections below.

Supporting physician practice
(67.4% of the budget)		 $ 120,413,390
Payments & incentives paid directly to physicians for clinical work
(50.6% of the budget)		 $ 90,376,000

This funding goes directly to physicians to support the work of providing longitudinal care. This includes the CLFP payment, maternity and in-hospital networking fees, new incentives, and the division-led long term care initiative.

Incentive payments to family physicians (maternity, hospital, lift to hospital fees) $ 34,557,457
Community Longitudinal Family Physician (CLFP) Payment 21,693,543
New Brief Conference Fee – new incentive 5,250,000
Mental Health – new incentive 2,000,000
New Patient Intake Fee – new incentive 3,100,000
Personal Health Risk Assessment – new incentive 1,500,000
Other incentive activities 1,190,000
Team Based Care Grant – one-time payment 3,960,000
BC Care Bundle – one-time payment 1,000,000
Long-Term Care Initiative 12,000,000
Additional in-patient care payments for sustainability of hospital programs (administered through the divisions of family practice) 3,600,000
International Medical Graduates program (JCC transfer) 125,000
Maternity Care (MC4BC) 400,000
  • The CLFP Payment is an annual payment between $3000-$12,000, based on the number and complexity of the patient panel. It recognizes the additional, non-direct responsibilities required to provide ongoing, coordinated care for which fee-for-service physicians are not compensated.
  • The new brief clinical conference fee supports family doctors in coordinating patient care with other doctors and providers. The fee addresses feedback from family doctors that their time spent on brief conferences was unfunded.
  • Once a patient reaches the MSP limit of four counselling visits per year, the GPSC provides four additional counselling visits per patient through the mental health management fees. GPSC introduced this fee in recognition that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of mental health needs and the risk of substance use disorder in patients.
  • The new patient intake fee is for family doctors who are confirming the addition of a new patient to the doctor’s panel. It is not meant to compensate for the work involved in adding that patient to the panel.
  • The personal health risk assessment has added providing clinical prevention care to patients at risk of substance use disorder.
  • The BC Care Bundle was a one-time payment with a minimum of $1000 to each eligible family physician. It supported family doctors who managed high risk patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and influenza season.
  • GPSC’s long-term care initiative enables physicians to develop local, scalable, and sustainable solutions to care for patients in long-term facilities. A recent review shows the initiative led to significant improvement in the medical care of BC seniors in long-term  care facilities since the initiative started in 2015.
  • The team-based care grant was a one-time payment of $15,000 to support family practices that onboarded interprofessional team members. It helped address the costs of recruitment and onboarding, which family doctors identified as barriers to creating team-based care practices.
  • Additional in-patient care payments for sustainability of hospital programs – The GPSC is providing one year of enhanced funding to 47 communities to support networks of family doctors in providing longitudinal care for hospital inpatients while GPSC collaborates with partners to identify a sustainable solution. The GPSC provides funding and support to integrate international medical graduates into BC family practice.
  • Maternity Care for BC (MC4BC) supports family doctors to strengthen their obstetrical knowledge and skills through hands-on experience, peer mentorship, and financial compensation.
Quality improvement (QI) & change management 
(6.1% of the budget)

$ 10,800,000

The GPSC provides tools and resources, including local/community-based coaches and peer mentors to undertake QI and other practice foundation activities in order to realize the attributes of the patient medical home model. 

Panel Development Incentive $ 4,500,000
PSP - Delivery Sessionals 4,600,000
Payment to family physicians for participating in SSC PQI program 1,700,000
Tools & resources for practices
(8.9% of the budget)		 $ 15,867,390

The GSPC also provides tools and resources for assisting physicians in practice, such as providing physicians with point of care access to information that helps in practice. These are resources that physicians use every day in practice to access information and tools that support physicians and patients.

Minor tenant improvements

$ 4,500,000

Health Data Coalition (HDC)

4,100,000

Substance Use and Addictions Care (BCCSU)

162,390

Up-to-Date

2,800,000

Pathways

1,400,000

Patient Experience Tool

530,000

Building QI capacity in practice

2,375,000
  • Through the minor tenant improvements grant, the GPSC funds minor tenant improvements to family physician owned/leased clinics participating in their local Primary Care Networks (PCNs).
  • Funded by the GPSC, the Health Data Coalition is a physician-led data sharing initiative that aims to turn aggregated clinical data into useable information that enables collaborative practice and community level quality improvement activities.
  • The GPSC supports physicians to access continuing education opportunities through the BC Centre on Substance Use and Addictions Care (BCCSU), a provincially networked organization focused on evidence-based approaches for treating substance use and addiction and BC ECHO on Substance Use, which is a community of practice.
  • The GPSC provides family doctors with access to Up-to-Date (Wolters Kluwer), an online evidence-based clinical decision support platform.
  • Pathways is an online resource that provides physicians and their teams with quick access to current and accurate referral information, including wait times and areas of expertise of specialists and specialty clinics.
  • Doctors use data from the patient experience tool, a survey for patients about their experience with a family practice, to inform quality improvement activities.
  • The GPSC supports building QI capacity in practice to enable proactive, data-informed care and improve provider and patient experience through the GPSC’s Practice Support Program and Doctor’s Technology Office.
Physician leadership
(1.9% of the budget)		 $ 3,370,000

These initiatives give physicians the tools and resources to have meaningful voice and influence in the health care system.

GPSC Summit

$ 300,000

Quality Forum/Showcase (JCC transfer)

125,000

Cultural safety & anti-racism events for physicians

350,000

GPSC Leadership Development Program

1,100,000

Health System Redesign (JCC transfer)

870,000

GPSC Working Groups

625,000
  • The GPSC Summit is a venue for learning and knowledge sharing about collaborative approaches to primary care transformation.
  • The GPSC supports the annual Quality Forum Showcase, which is a forum for sharing knowledge and advancing new ideas to improve care across BC.
  • The GPSC collaborates across the Joint Collaborative Committees and with First Nations to deliver cultural safety and anti-racism learning opportunities to physicians as a priority area of focus.
  • The GPSC leadership and management development program builds physician leadership capacity related to the overall redesign of primary care in BC.
  • The GPSC provides funding to physicians and communities to ensure physician input to support implementing local solutions for health system redesign projects initiated through health authorities.
  • The GPSC working groups support the development, evolution, and operations of provincial initiatives to support physicians in improving care to target populations.
Supporting divisions
(17.4% of the budget)		 $ 31,100,000

These are tools and resources that support communities of physicians via the divisions of family practice. The divisions are community-based groups of family physicians working together to achieve common health care goals. Divisions work collaboratively with community and health care partners to enhance local patient care and improve professional satisfaction for physicians. There are 35 divisions representing more than 230 communities, including a division that targets physicians in remote and rural areas of the province.

New maternity supports

$ 1,000,000

Physician change management supports & engagement

7,100,000

Infrastructure funding

22,000,000

Regional/local attachment mechanisms

1,000,000
  • The GPSC has provided funding to communities at risk of non-sustainability of maternity services for the development and evolution of community approaches to supporting maternity care.
  • The GPSC provides funding to all 35 divisions of family practice to support physician change management and engagement in developing and implementing patient medical homes and primary care networks.
  • The GPSC provides infrastructure funding to all 35 divisions to support the core functions of divisions – governance, strategic leadership, operations – and collaborative work and engagement at the local, regional, and provincial levels.
  • The GPSC provides funding to 35 divisions to augment divisions’ local attachment work, and to enhance recruitment and retention efforts across BC.
Program development & administration
(15.1% of the budget)		 $ 27,041,449
For program development & administration
(6.5% of the budget)		 $ 11,527,000

The supports in this category ensure that we have the capability for ongoing evolution and improvement of programs, tools, and resources that the GPSC provides to support family practice.

CPQ Program

$ 300,000

DTO Program

1,800,000

GPSC staff related costs for program development, administration, and monitoring  

3,250,000

Incentive fee program

150,000

Recruitment & retention – regional coordination

750,000

GPSC Committee

225,000

Evaluations

932,000

JCC Cross-committee work (JCC transfer)

70,000

GPSC Operations & overhead

3,550,000

Ministry staff supporting administration, evaluation, and incentives

500,000
  • Through the CPQ program, now known as the Primary and Community Care Transformation team, GPSC provides a suite of programs that support physicians in practice and in community.
  • The Doctors Technology Office (DTO) provides technical and advocacy support for BC physicians with a focus on doctors who have implemented an electronic medical record (EMR). Services include clinic level security and privacy readiness, and supports to enable the safe integration of systems and data flow within patient medical homes and primary care networks.
  • GPSC staff related costs for program development, administration and monitoring for all committee initiatives, activities and deliverables.
  • The incentive fee program involves designing, implementing, analyzing, and managing new and existing family practice payments, including those that have transferred to the Available Amount.
  • GPSC provides regional recruitment and retention funding to support regional collaboration for increased, equitable family physician recruitment and retention in the region.
  • Funding for the GPSC committee, GPSC operations and overhead supports the activities of the committee and working groups, in addition to measuring progress and evaluating GPSC and community initiatives.
  • The GPSC develops and implements evaluation frameworks and tools that affect patient medical homes and primary care networks. The GPSC also conducts in-depth studies of patient medical home innovation in partnership with stakeholders.
  • The Joint Collaborative Committee (JCC) cross committee work involves decision making and local implementation strategies through data analysis and synthesis of learning across initiatives.
For staff working directly with physicians in their practices
(8.7% of the budget)		 $ 15,514,449

GPSC provides staff who work directly with physicians within their practice and supports physicians in their collective efforts to improve care in their communities.

PSP – Regional support teams

$ 9,664,449

Panel management support team

2,050,000

Enhanced TBC support

300,000

CPI Central infrastructure & engagement partners

3,500,000
  • Regional support teams from the GPSC Practice Support Program offer customized coaching to support doctors in exploring how new tools or team-based care options can improve both the physician’s practice experience and patient care.
  • The GPSC panel management support team supports family practices through the phases of panel management and ongoing panel maintenance.
  • Enhanced team-based care coaches offer specialized expertise to primary care teams to facilitate aligning team member competencies and scope, and integrating new roles with new scopes into practices, resulting in improved understanding among team members.
  • The GPSC develops and operates a suite of programs that support physicians in the community through CPI central infrastructure and engagement partners.