Choose Granite Countertops Near Me Kingston, MA for Elegance and Durability

A Kingston family doctor is still fighting to overturn a ruling in 2024 that said she should pay back more than $600,000 in vaccine payments for COVID-19 vaccines that she co-ordinated to deliver during the height of the pandemic.

Dr. Elaine Ma appeared in the Ontario Divisional Court for Judicial Review in Toronto on Tuesday to present her arguments on why a 2-24 ruling by the Health Services Appeal and Review Board should be overturned.

That ruling was handed down on Nov. 26, 2024, and instructed Ma to pay back $600,962.61, plus interest, to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) for vaccinations administered during pop-up, drive-through COVID-19 vaccination clinics between July 2021 and January 2022.

The clinics delivered 35,000 vaccine doses in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic by Ma with the help of medical students, volunteers and local partners within the public health-care system.

Ma was widely praised for her efforts in a time when vaccination was being viewed as a main line of defence against the spread of COVID-19.

In 2021, she received an Award of Excellent from the Ontario College of Family Physicians, who praised her for her leadership and initiative.

As previously reported in great detail in the Kingston Whig-Standard in December of 2024, OHIP took issue with the way in which the vaccinations were billed, saying that the services were “not provided in accordance with payment requirements in the Act and the regulations,” as stated in the Health Services Appeal and Review Board hearing document.

Ma spoke to the Whig on her way home from court on Tuesday. She doesn’t know when a decision will be made, but it could take up to three months.

“Today’s court was basically a question about whether the previous hearing was a reasonable decision,” Ma said.

“I think that there was an opportunity for the court to hear how important of an issue this is and how there are far-reaching consequences about this decision,” Ma said.

Ma said that a ruling against her could mean that other family physicians will fear penalization for legitimate work, or for choosing to innovate during a health crisis.

She said that she created a “playbook” of sorts to help other doctors in the region deliver large-scale, easy-access vaccinations during the pandemic — a playbook others used.

“There are many doctors that I know of that ran similar clinics using the same billing model and the same structure model,” Ma said. “All of them have their heads down right now, and are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to be the next ones attacked by OHIP.

“I know there are many I the same boat, but they haven’t yet been targeted by OHIP. Part of that is probably because they didn’t run 48 clinics and they didn’t vaccinate 35,000 people. But they did it exactly how I did it.”

Currently, Ma’s wages are being garnished to pay back the allegedly improperly-billed vaccine fees.

Ma wants people to understand that the “big numbers floating around” about how much she was paid never reflected the costs involved.

“I don’t even know the full costs of these clinics, because I never went back and added it all up, but 48 clinics over nine months, immeasurable hours putting everything into (the billing system), huge amounts of money paying other people, buying supplies and equipment….

“I just really hope that, going forward, OHIP will try to be more reasonable with doctors and recognize that we’re not trying to get away with fraudulent billing. There’s never been a question that this work was done. It’s been done. They agreed these were the billing codes to use for vaccinating.”

Ma wishes that OHIP and doctors could feel as if they are working towards the same goal.

“I hope at some point OHIP will recognized that we’re supposed to be in this together,” she said. “What they shouldn’t be doing is attacking doctors who’ve done work, but instead looking to say, how can we do things better for the population and for the citizens of Ontario who we’re all supposed to serve?”

mbalogh@postmedia.com

A Kingston, Ont. doctor ordered to repay the Ontario government more than $600,000 for improper billing related to the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine will appear in a Toronto court on Tuesday in an attempt to reverse the decision.

Dr. Elaine Ma organized large drive-thru vaccination clinics in the Kingston region between January 2021 and January 2022 that saw about 35,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine given to residents.

The Ministry of Health argued Ma misused the Ontario Health Insurance Plan’s (OHIP) billing code because she used unpaid Queen’s University medical students as volunteers who could not be considered employees.

In addition, the services were not provided in Ma’s office, a violation of what the province deems to be “delegated services” that are regulated under a different fee structure.

In November 2024, the Health Services Appeal and Review Board found Ma was not eligible to bill OHIP $600,962 plus interest.

Ma had said she does not have the money to repay the Ontario government and is asking the court to reverse the original ruling.

“We’re in a family medicine shortage and we need to support our doctors, we need them to feel appreciated,” Ma said after the hearing.

“And one on one hand, OHIP’s attorney stands up and says ‘Dr. Ma did great work, thank you very much. We’re no way trying to diminish that,’ and then on the other hand say but this actually wasn’t anything extenuating and nothing was done here that couldn’t have been done by others and couldn’t have been done by government. And therefore, she should not only not be paid, but also should be out of pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars. Those two statements aren’t congruent with each other.”

The Ontario Medical Association said Ma’s “prompt and innovative response saved lives. Dr. Ma and all the other physicians who stepped up for their communities should be applauded, not punished.”

Ma says the initial decision has broader impacts.

“If the stance that OHIP has, which is that the physician can no longer bill for the services that are administered or done or performed by medical students, then essentially it is a situation where physicians are being asked to pay to train medical students. They’re being asked to forfeit their own income,” Ma said.

“And saying no you can’t do things in an efficient manner, then that limits our ability to provide care to our patients.”