They are a select all-male group.All are doctors who billed the Ontario Health Insurance Plan more than $3 million in the 2017-18 fiscal year, making the Top 10 list of OHIP billers in the province — and whose names the Star can finally reveal after a five-year battle to get access to the information. As part of an ongoing series examining the billing data, the Star is showing how tax dollars are spent and pressing for greater transparency in a cash-strapped health system. Most of the Top 10 billers do not have a record of discipline or cautions with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), the professional body that regulates doctors in the province.One has a disciplinary record with the college and recently resigned amid an investigation into infection control at his Kitchener pain clinic. He also agreed never to work as a doctor in Ontario again.Another was cautioned by the college for his clinical care and professionalism in 2017. Read more: They’re Ontario’s top-billing doctors, but for years their identities have been kept secret. Until now How doctors get paid in OntarioSupreme Court of Canada says it will not hear appeal from doctors who want to keep names of top OHIP billers secretYet another has no disciplinary record in Ontario but was sued for malpractice in the United States at least 12 times. Patients in at least three cases there received settlements totalling $1.3 million (U.S.).The doctors’ billings, below, are not their net take-home pay. Doctors deduct their often significant overhead expenses such as rent, staff and equipment from the billings. For comparison, the average family doctor gets about $307,000, according to the most recent figure from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), an independent research organization. Ophthalmologists have the highest average, at about $724,000 — and highly trained specialists within specialties can make even more. The Star has obtained data fr ...
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