The original article was written by David Willberg for SaskToday.ca. You can read it here.

REGINA — A new report shows that Saskatchewan is among the worst culprits in the country for time spent by physicians on what the document calls “administrative burden.”

Compiled by the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), Losing Doctors to Desk Work says Saskatchewan physicians spend an average of 10.7 hours per week filling out insurance forms, referrals, sick time requests and other paperwork, leaving it tied with Ontario and Alberta for the most in the country.

According to the CMA, it amounts to 20 million hours of unnecessary paperwork for medical doctors each year.

The report shows Saskatchewan had 2,709 physicians in 2024, and they worked a combined 1,277,387 administrative hours. “Unnecessary” administrative hours amounted to 568,012, or 58 per cent. The report added the average physician worked 49.8 hours per week.

Twenty per cent of a physician’s work week

Saskatchewan Medical Association president Dr. Pamela Arnold said there weren’t any surprises in the report. She added the SMA is quite aware of the cost of “administrative burden” on physicians and the role it plays in their lives, but it was good to have it documented.

If the average physician works 50 hours a week, she said roughly 20 per cent of that time is spent on administrative tasks, which is often completed after hours, taking away from time spent with families and hindering work-life balance. It also reduces time with patients and impacts wait times. She also noted administrative work is poorly compensated.

“If we can work on eliminating one of those unnecessary administrative tasks, we can … increase the number of patients physicians see,” Arnold said.

The biggest source of red tape, she said, is the lack of “interoperability” in systems and patient care records.

“I think that most patients assume, and people assume, that when they go to see a physician or they go to a hospital, that all of the data that’s put in one place can be seen easily across all of the platforms,” Arnold said.

While physicians have access to much of the information, she added it requires multiple sign-ins to multiple systems.

The SMA hopes to work toward solutions with better interoperability between systems and improved communication between electronic medical records and eHealth platforms.

Saskatchewan physicians also complete many forms for insurers, and billing processes create significant administrative burden when claims are rejected.

Click on the SaskToday story  for Dr. Arnold’s full comments.