We all know of the issue Advent Health Ottawa and Ottawa Family Physicians are having. Recently, Advent terminated the contract with OFP as Hospitalists at the hospital. According to a release by Advent Health, the contract in question actually violated the law and they are only able to legally pay physicians for the “fair market value” of their services. Their third-party assessment of the Legacy Contract showed OFP had been paid significantly above fair market value.
During Thursday’s Hospital Board Meeting, Dallas Purkeypile, Advent Health Ottawa CEO, said that ultimately the hospital could not stand behind the existing contract and had to offer an amended one. That point was argued by Dr. John Gollier who says the whole process felt misleading, saying that the contract had been ongoing for several months and they believed they would continue to be the Hospitalists. He says OFP was never shown a final report on the ‘new and fair market value figures’. At the meeting, he and Dr. Dru Nichols told the Board several times that their salaries in the original contract were fair market value and they believed the decision was all about dollars and cents, they had been reduced to a budget line item and felt devalued. Gollier says he and the other doctors at OFP will continue to be advocates for patients at the hospital, even if they won’t be seeing them and the community and providing the highest quality of care.
