There are new eligibility requirements for the Community Longitudinal Family Physician (CLFP) Payment 2023. Changes to the CLFP Payment eligibility criteria align with the new Longitudinal Family Physician (LFP) Payment Model, reflect feedback from physicians, and ensure we have as accurate and as up-to-date primary care data as possible.
The CLFP Payment for longitudinal physicians on fee-for-service or alternative payment models recognizes the additional responsibilities of community-based family physicians who provide long-term, relationship-based care for a panel of patients. The payment amount for each eligible physician is based on the size and complexity of their patient panel.
Eligibility for the CLFP Payment now includes participation in the new Provincial Attachment System (PAS) by December 31, 2023. A key component of this is uploading your list of empanelled patients into the system and committing to updating your panel data. “Empanelled patient” means an individual patient for whom a family physician has accepted responsibility to provide and coordinate longitudinal, relationship-based, comprehensive, family medicine care.
Eligibility will also be based on having a minimum of 250 empanelled patients rather than the previous requirement of 50 MSOC (Majority Source of Care) patients.
Using a minimum number of empanelled patients allows the CLFP Payment to include community longitudinal family physicians who are new-to-practice; took temporary leave in the previous year; share patients with other community longitudinal family physicians in a group practice setting; or, have small patient panels because they work part-time and/or provide facility-based care or episodic care. New-to-practice physicians will need to have a minimum of 250 empanelled patients within four months of beginning practice. In these situations, the criteria of 250 empanelled patients more accurately reflects the physician panels rather than the previous MSOC minimum requirement.
While the CLFP Payment 2023 will still be based on MSOC as an interim methodology, we’re working to transition future CLFP Payments to be based on patient panel information submitted by physicians. Changing the methodology responds to feedback from family physicians that MSOC calculations don’t sufficiently represent their panel size and complexity.
In addition to the CLFP Payment, eligible longitudinal family physicians will receive $6500 for completing the required panel registry work by December 31, 2023, which includes uploading and committing to updating their panel data and their availability for accepting new patients. Additionally, medical directors (or their delegates) can claim $2000 per clinic providing longitudinal family practice services when they validate and update their clinic information on the PAS Clinic and Provider Registry. They are encouraged to take these actions as soon as possible.
What you need to do next is panel clean up to develop an accurate list of empanelled patients. There are guides and resources available to help you, which can be found on the Health Technology Resources webpage. You can also submit a service request for assistance, or email psp@doctorsofbc.ca. Stay tuned for information about when you can start uploading your panel to the PAS provider registry and the process for doing so.
LFP-enrolled physicians are eligible for a CLFP Payment amount that is pro-rated for their time working under fee-for-service or an eligible alternative payment model in 2023 prior to joining the LFP Payment model.
More information about the CLFP Payment 2023 process, including Q/As, will be communicated in the weeks ahead.