OMA report finds male specialists get more referrals, higher billings

A new report from the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) finds that male specialists get more referrals than their female counterparts, which impacts payment.

The report looks at OHIP billing data for 7.6 million new referrals made by more than 32,000 physicians to more than 13,000 surgeons and other specialists.

The findings show that female specialists earned 4.7 per cent less per referral than males.

The researchers also found that physicians were more likely to refer to specialists of the same gender.

However, both male and female physicians referred more patients to male specialists, impacting the total number of referrals and therefore payment for each patient.

The researchers say this gap creates a vicious cycle with female specialists having fewer opportunities to perform procedures and acquire skills.

Researchers also say this gap will likely remain unless there are policy changes.

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Dr. Andrew Park, OMA’s president, says this kind of research provides valuable evidence to build solutions.

“The fact that the gender pay gap in medicine remains so many years after it was first identified is worrying, especially as more than 40 per cent of physicians in Canada are women,” Park says.

The report says one solution is to create a centralized and gender-blind referral system and be transparent about wait times for individual specialists.

Researchers say this may help female doctors who are thought to have shorter wait lists than male doctors because of referral biases.

The study also found that physicians were also more likely to refer to specialists with similar years of experience and those practicing at the same hospital.

Dr. Lyn Sibley, director of OMA’s healthcare research, says “We found that 83 per cent of the difference was due to the greater number of referrals and 17 per cent to the higher billings.”

OMA recommended creating a centralized wait list and referral system in each of the six Ontario health regions for certain surgeries and procedures in their list of proposals earlier this year.