OHIP

Darla,

I wrote to Ed regarding our profession not being specialized. And this is good example of what I was talking about. I work in a facility where ingrown nails are being avulsed with no phenol by physicians in ambulatory care. Do they know what they're doing? Hell no. So we end up seeing them in our department for another avulsion and less pain. Do the physicians know that Chiropody exists? Of course! Do they want to refer the patients to us? Of course not! They get "x" amount of $$$ for an avulsion that we do better! There's no way of eliminating OHIP coverage for foot care by physicians. They make fast money for VPs and avulsions, damn easy, so referring out to us, I don't think so. A physician even asked me how to do a nail avulsion properly because he knew he was doing a poor job. So I told him, you think he cares about referring to us? Again, it all boils down to what the OSC can do for us and the profession and the answer to that is: NOTHING!

Looking forward to comments...