Ontario government plans to recoup COVID-19 loans to province’s doctors

TORONTO — The Ontario government says it plans to recoup loan payments issued to doctors at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic to cover their increased costs and loss of revenue from lower patient volumes.

In a memo issued to the Ontario Medical Association on Friday, which was obtained by The Canadian Press, the province says it is “critical” to recover more than $521 million in outstanding loan payments in order to fund other priorities.

Beginning next month, the Ministry of Health will deduct pay from physicians’ monthly OHIP payments over a one-year period, rather than the original five-month timeline it first proposed, with no interest charged.

The ministry says it was clear when it launched the COVID-19 Advance Payment Program in April 2020 that monthly loan payments doled out to eligible health-care providers would need to be paid back.

Since loan repayments began in April 2021, it says it has recovered nearly $139 million out of the total $660 million provided.

But after collecting the first round of instalments, the province paused the loan recovery process a month later “until further notice,” saying the resumption of payments would be “driven by the circumstances of the pandemic.”