British Columbians who come down with a cold or other minor illness won’t need to show a doctor’s note to their employer, if new provincial legislation is approved.
B.C. Labour Minister Jennifer Whiteside and Health Minister Josie Osborne unveiled the legislation Tuesday, saying it will free doctors up from needless paperwork, while preventing sick people from spreading their illness just to get a sick note.
“That person has to go to a clinic while they are sick, potentially contagious, where they interact with other people in the clinic and they risk spreading the infection they have — and instead of seeing a patient they can actually treat, the health provider uses that appointment time to tick a box on a form or to write a cursory note for somebody who doesn’t actually require a clinical intervention,” Whiteside said.
“So with the passing of Bill 11, we will be able to save doctors in this province thousands of hours of important time to allow people with minor illnesses to stay home and get better.”
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Doctors have been pressing the province to eliminate employer-mandated sick notes for some time, arguing the policy leaves them with a heavy administrative burden and takes up appointments that would be better used for real patients.
The BC College of Family Physicians says survey data from its members suggest roughly 3o per cent of a family doctor’s time is spent on administrative tasks, including sick notes.
It’s a position echoed by the Canadian Medical Association, which says about one in three working Canadians are asked by their employer to get a sick note — resulting in doctors writing up more than 12 million a year.
“Providing such sick notes to satisfy an employer’s policy is really not productive use of physicians’ nor nurse practitioners’ time nor education,” said Victoria physician Dr. Tracy Tresoor.
“Requiring sick notes importantly highlights inequities between those people who have family doctors or primary care providers and those who don’t. This will be another step towards helping those who do not.”
Osborne said in addition to the sick note changes, the province is implementing other changes aimed at cutting doctors’ administrative burden.
She said the province is introducing changes to streamlining how medical appointments are scheduled, a process it estimates will save 180,000 hours of time per year.
B.C. is also replacing fax and paper-based medical processes with digital systems and consolidating and standardizing forms, she added.
“They want to be able to spend as much time as possible practicing medicine and caring for patients, and we need to do everything we can to find efficiencies and streamline processes for healthcare providers,” Osborne said.
Whiteside said the final details on the new sick note policy have will be hammered out in consultation with employers, labour groups and health care stakeholders.
“This change does not mean that workplace accountability is compromised. Employers are still able to manage attendance in a fair and reasonable manner,” she said.
“Questions such as the appropriate length of time to be considered for a short-term absence and how many times in a calendar year a person can be on short-term leave without proof of illness are questions we will canvass.”
Whiteside said the new policy will align B.C. with most other Canadian jurisdictions.
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