2024/2025 Membership Renewal is now open!
The "voice of the AMA" – Published regularly throughout the year, the President's Letter informs you about Alberta Medical Association positions on key and complex issues in Alberta’s health care.
Read the October 23 President's Letter
Here is AMA Fact Checkup – Issue 2. In this issue, we check and correct government on statements they have made.
Every day, misinformation about the health care system – often coming from government talking points – gets amplified and repeated in media coverage and on social media. For physicians, evidence matters. The barrage of misleading commentary is beyond frustrating.
Today we are launching a major advertising campaign.
The main message is this: Government is not listening to physicians. Decisions are being made without application of relevant expertise. Our system needs informed reform.
This is my first President’s Letter. I am honoured to take on this role. I will have your back and fight with everything I’ve got.
Comments on the most recent President's Letter are enabled and welcome. You may also contact the AMA President by email at [email protected].
Below you will find previous issues of The President's Letter. For older issues no longer on the website, contact us.
Alberta Health issued a Bulletin yesterday indicating that retroactive payments will be distributed this Friday, March 22 to physicians who are eligible for Rural Remote Northern Program (RRNP) benefits.
The first round of Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) numbers was released earlier today, and Alberta has fewer unmatched family medicine residency positions this year than last year. This is good news. I was pleased to see that across the country, the numbers are looking more positive. Visit our website for additional context and an at-a-glance breakdown of the match numbers.
View an overview of unfilled positions in the 2024 R-1 main residency match and information on international medical graduate eligibility.
About 350 members joined our post-budget virtual town hall on Wednesday for an update on where things stand with government and a look ahead at advocacy plans. A recording of the presentation is available on the AMA website (member login required).
The Alberta Budget 2024 was released yesterday.
To the Minister, in media interviews and to the public, I have one message in the next two weeks: Family and rural practices are no longer sustainable and they need urgent support in Budget 2024.
You may have heard that government has released $12 million to the AMA to provide family physicians and rural generalists with support for costs related to panel management and practice improvement activities. This is part of the October 2023 release of the MAPS final reports, which included an announcement of $57 million in funding over three years for physicians participating in panel management. We did not negotiate these funds.
Yesterday, Alberta Health issued a Bulletin announcing that their billing system has been updated and physicians can now submit eligible ‘good faith’ claims – retroactive to April 1, 2022.
I am pleased to inform you that last week, after being without a contract since 2018, our colleagues in laboratory medicine voted yes to a new agreement with Alberta Precision Laboratories, effective April 1, 2022.
Yesterday the government announced plans to restrict access to gender-affirming treatments for pediatric trans patients. I immediately consulted with the Section of Pediatrics for the expertise these colleagues can bring regarding these vulnerable patients.