Every question has an answer
Since Vancouver’s All-Staff Forum, we’ve answered 31 staff questions. As long as we keep receiving questions, we’ll keep the answers coming. For the latest answers, please refer below. For earlier answers, read our September 5 article and previously published submissions to VCH News-Vancouver.
To learn more about our plans and direction; consult our interactive Vancouver Strategic Plan.
If you have a question about delivering quality health care services while tackling our budget challenge, we encourage you to email VancouverAll-StaffForum@vch.ca. We welcome your questions.
Today’s answered questions
Q. The private lab sector is continually adding to their list of lab tests that they make available and most often these are MSP billable tests. We have very few billable lab tests in our laboratory but for those specialty ones that we do offer we are we not being competitive enough to attract more business. Can we begin marketing these services as a way to create a new revenue stream?
A. MSP determines which lab tests are billable, and the fee schedule for these tests. The billable test menu is the same for both private labs (i.e. LifeLabs) and public labs (i.e. Lower Mainland Laboratories, an integrated laboratory organization providing laboratory services at hospital and agency sites throughout the Lower Mainland and Central Coast, including VGH). VGH labs currently have a menu of more than 1,000 tests, and at this point in time, we’re not aware of any MSP billable tests that aren’t available through the public system.
An important service that Lower Mainland Laboratories provides is outpatient lab tests. We can bill MSP for these tests, and the revenue collected is allocated back to the health care system. Any lab test requisition that you receive from your physician, regardless of the logo on the requisition, can be taken to one of the public outpatient labs, including the VGH outpatient lab in the Diamond Centre.
Like you, Lower Mainland Laboratories believes there’s potential for generating revenues through the promotion of lab services to patients and clinicians. The organization is still in the very early stages of exploring options, so please stay tuned.
In the meantime, we have 33 patient services centres throughout the Lower Mainland to serve our patients, staff and families. You can find a list of patient services centres, with their hours of operation, phone numbers, etc. on the Lower Mainland Pathology & Laboratory Medicine site at: http://pod/AGENCIES/PHSALAB/pages/Default.aspx.
Q. Have you done any analysis on which patients will be affected by the various program/budget cuts? Are some patient groups (such as mental health patients, foreign born patients, babies) experiencing the cuts more than other groups? If the budget decisions disadvantage one group of patients over another, we should all be clear about that and be comfortable with the implications. These cuts are not neutral; they reflect not just our resources but our values.
A. No single program area is experiencing more disinvestment than another. We are pursuing changes as equitably as possible in areas that have the least client impact and where service alternatives exist.
But you are correct. There is no such thing as a neutral service change. Service changes have the ability to impact both clients and staff, but we are trying to minimize impacts. For every service change or reduction, we try to ensure there is an alternative or similar service available for clients to access. In the case of some changed services, we have transitioned clients ourselves to alternate programs. Take, for example, the discontinuation of the Newborn Hotline. That service was started prior to the availability of the provincially available and RN-staffed HealthLink 8-1-1 call centre. With the advent of 8-1-1, the Newborn Hotline — however well loved and useful — became an example of service duplication. Our decision to discontinue it means we can reinvest those budget savings into other VCH priority-spending areas, such as on expansion of our ACT teams and our budget challenge.
Disinvesting from any program isn’t a reflection on staff’s dedication or the quality of care/service provided. Rather, it is one of the many hard choices we must make in order to operate within our limited budget. Guiding all our future decisions is the need for VCH to continue to provide the widest range of necessary health care services to the most people who require them, and all with a finite health care funding envelope.