MPP, Council urge province to reconsider repayment demand of Kingston doctor; premier, health minister keep mum

Support for Kingston's Dr. Elaine Ma continues to snowball in the City of Kingston and the Ontario legislature.

Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Ted Hsu presented a petition in the Ontario legislature on Monday, Dec. 9, 2024, calling on the Ontario government to set aside the Ontario Health Insurance Plan's (OHIP's) demands and an Ontario Health Services Appeal and Review Board (HSARB) decision calling on Dr. Elaine Ma to pay back over $600,000 in fees for vaccination clinics she ran at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the official Hansard record, Hsu told the legislature, “I have a petition from constituents in Kingston and the Islands, many of whom experienced the mass vaccination clinics during the COVID pandemic organized by Dr. Elaine Ma. She was audited by OHIP, and a demand for repayment from OHIP was upheld by a recent Health Services Appeal and Review Board ruling.”

“The undersigned constituents,” Hsu went on, “call on the premier and the health minister to demonstrate their commitment to Ontario’s health-care workers by ordering OHIP to set aside the HSARB decision and cease demanding repayment of earned billings.”

Doctors in Kingston collected over 17 pages of signatures over the weekend and gave them to Hsu to submit.

Hsu's full address in the legislature can be seen in a video in his Facebook post discussing Dr. Ma's situation.

Meanwhile, an online petition on Change.org continues to gain signatures. Over 3,000 people have added their names in just the last week, as the petition nears 5,000 signatures.

This isn't Hsu's first attempt to discuss Dr. Ma's case in the legislature. He first brought the situation out into the open during question period on May 15, 2024. The Hansard of the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session details Hsu’s attempt to intervene on Ma’s behalf when he rose to speak on OHIP coverage of COVID-19 immunization.

The official petition to the legislature on December 9 came just a week after Kingston City Council voted to urge the provincial government to "do the human thing” and not force Ma to repay OHIP, saying Ma came up with an “innovative method” to vaccinate people in 2021 just before the Omicron variant of COVID-19 arrived and shutdowns were ordered.

“This was a pandemic-level measure,” Kingscourt-Rideau District Councillor Brandon Tozzo reasoned as he asked his fellow councillors for support of his new motion. "It was something that had to be done in extraordinary circumstances.”

Tozzo’s motion, copies of which were sent to Deputy Premier and Health Minister Sylvia Jones, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore, Kingston and the Islands MPP Ted Hsu, and Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston MPP John Jordan, declared that “Kingston City Council express its support for Dr. Ma in her continued appeal of the HSARB decision; and that Kingston City Council request the provincial government to review the decision of the HSARB with respect to Dr. Ma in recognition of the unique circumstances of a public health emergency.”

Kingstonist contacted the offices of the health minister and the premier, asking for their response to the petition.

Hannah Jensen, spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones, responded, "We appreciate the efforts of all healthcare workers who stepped up and vaccinated Ontarians throughout the COVID-19 pandemic."

She continued, "During COVID, a Ministerial Order was issued to set up special payments for physicians at designated assessment centers (sic), such as the one in Kingston. This order established an hourly rate and expenses for all insured services at assessment centres, including vaccinations. With the exception of one, all vaccination clinics across the province used this special code to bill for vaccination at community clinics. As is the case for any physician in the province, if they incorrectly bill the province through OHIP, they are required to repay the overbilled amount to the province."

Jensen's response went on, "The case has been referred to the independent Health Services Appeal and Review Board (HSARB), which is set up to review billing, and the board has made its ruling... Should the physician want to appeal the review board's decision, they can follow the appeal process outlined by HSARB."

Kingstonist immediately responded to Jensen, pointing out that this response does not answer the question of how the premier and health minister intend to respond to the petition by the people of Kingston.

Jensen responded, "The statement stands as a response. HSARB is an independent body and there is a process to appeal the decision if the physician would like to follow that pathway."

While this statement is accurate, it fails to recognize the minister of health has the power to conduct a post-payment review and set aside the ruling of the HSARB, as Hsu has requested on multiple occasions. 

This isn't the only imprecise comment that the Ministry of Health has shared since it refused to answer initial questions or confirm if our messages were being passed on to ministers as requested in November 2024. In October, Jensen first claimed to Kingstonist that "a Ministerial Order was issued to set up special payments for physicians at designated assessment centres." She has yet to provide Kingstonist with a copy of the order despite repeated requests for one.

Kingstonist then asked The Legislative Library and Legislative Research (who provide MPPs, their staff, and legislative committees with confidential, non-partisan research and analysis on request) to provide a copy of the Ministerial Order.

Members of that staff responded, "The Ministry provides public announcements of physician service fee changes in the form of OHIP INFOBulletins. The 2021 OHIP INFOBulletin 210704 confirms that the changes to fees referenced in the bulletin were the result of negotiations between the Ministry and the OMA and not the result of a ministerial order... While [a Ministerial Order] is a possible avenue to amend fees, this does not appear to be the case in this instance."

The actual contents of the statement sent to Kingstonist by Jensen are not the only indication that the statement doesn't address the questions Kingstonist posed to the ministry. Not only does the statement fail to answer the question of how the premier and health minister plan to address the concerns being raised by MPP Hsu in Queen's Park and City Council in Kingston City Hall, but it also mirrors word for word a statement sent to Kingstonist the same day (Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024) from MPP Ric Bresee's office. That statement --- which even includes a misspelling of the word 'centre' in the same place --- was attributed to Bresee by his staff, and was apparently in response to a request for comment made on October 28, 2024. The statement from Bresee's office has now been added to the article it was originally requested for here.

So far, despite Kingstonist's repeated requests, Premier Doug Ford has not weighed in publicly on this matter, although his initial instinct appeared to be a desire to help Dr. Ma by urging the health minister to intervene. Additionally, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore --- the former medical officer of health for Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) Public Health --- has not responded to multiple requests for comment, requests made both through his office and the ministry and through direct email.