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She paid $8,000 for cataract surgery at a private clinic on a doctor’s referral. She says no one told her OHIP had a free option
Posted: March 13, 2025
(March 13, 2025)
By: Kenyon Wallace, The Toronto Star (behind a paywall)
–> The first part of the article is as follows:
The 85-year-old’s family is considering filing a complaint with the office of Ontario’s Patient Ombudsman, which received some 4,429 complaints in the 2023-24 fiscal year — the most since it opened in 2016.
Rosaria Giovanniello says when she was referred to a private clinic for cataract surgery, no one told her that the procedure was covered by OHIP, the government-run public health insurance plan for Ontario.
So when the 85-year-old grandmother was given a price tag of $8,000 for the “best” lenses by the private clinic she was referred to in September 2022, she paid it even if it meant taking a big financial hit.
–> Here is the mention of the Ontario Health Coalition:
Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, an advocacy group working to protect public health care, said that more than 70 complaints about community surgical and diagnostic centres heard by the ombudsman “is a lot given that the vast majority of patients don’t know they can make a complaint.”
She noted that complaints received by the ombudsman about poor quality of care, poor communication and patient records in the private clinics also reflects what her organization hears from Ontarians.
“In addition, we hear a lot of complaints about manipulative upselling, proliferating user charges and illegal extra-billing,” Mehra said. “The private clinics are owned by profit-seeking corporations and the evidence is that the corners cut to take profit out of our health system result in poorer quality.”
