Doctors: Are you receiving your Business Cost Premium payments?

Doctors of BC is encouraging eligible, community-based doctors to confirm they are receiving the Business Cost Premium (BCP). Effective April 2020, the BCP provides a percentage premium on MSP fees for in-person consultation, visit, counselling, and complete examination services to help cover the rising rent, lease, or ownership costs of a community-based office.   

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Doctors meeting the following criteria are eligible for the BCP:

• You are responsible for some, or all of the rent, lease, or ownership costs of a community-based office, either directly or indirectly. 
• The community-based office is in an eligible geographical location. For example: Vancouver, Victoria, Metro Vancouver, Greater Victoria, and other communities that do not receive rural retention benefits. To align with the BCP, effective April 1, 2021 the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues (JSC) introduced the Rural Business Cost Modifier (RBCM) to support physicians who reside and practice in rural communities. Rural physicians will receive an increase to their quarterly Rural Retention Program (RRP) flat fee payment disbursed via their Health Authority on behalf of the JSC. For a full list of Rural Subsidiary Agreement (RSA) communities and the corresponding flat fee/RBCM payment amounts please click here.
• You must be entitled to receive and retain payment for the eligible fees directly from MSP (e.g. payments assigned to Health Authorities are not eligible for the premium).

Eligible BC doctors who have not yet registered for the BCP are encouraged to do so. One month after its launch, the BCP was expanded to include Telehealth (phone and video) fee items for consultation, visit, counselling, and complete examination services. This temporary measure ensures that eligible physicians can continue to access the premium during the pandemic, given these services would have normally been provided in-person in physician’s offices. 

If you have not registered, you can do so at any time. Please visit our BCP page for information and the application for registration. 
 

If you are registered, but not receiving payment

BC doctors who have registered for the BCP but are unsure if they are receiving payment are asked to double check their remittance statement. For doctors who have already registered for the BCP, the BCP payment will be listed in the adjustment area of the remittance statement (shown in the photo below):

The most common reason for not receiving payment after registration is due to missing information on the billing claim, specifically, the BCP facility number assigned to the physician’s community-based office. It is essential to ensure the BCP facility number is included on each submitted billing claim for the Teleplan system to apply the correct percentage premium for each location. Please note that inclusion of the facility number on billing claims may not be automated with some billing software.

Doctors who still have concerns regarding their BCP payment are encouraged to phone Health Insurance BC (HIBC) for assistance. HIBC administers the BCP on behalf of the Medical Services Plan and has dedicated support for it at the following phone numbers: Vancouver: 604 456 6950 and Elsewhere in BC: 1 866 456 6950. Upon request, HIBC can also provide approval for doctors to resubmit eligible claims to receive retroactive BCP payment. 

If you have questions about the information in this article, e-mail us at View Email Addresseconomics@doctorsofbc.ca.