It is intended to provide compensation for after-hours emergency calls/services, and is paid in addition to fee-for-service billings for the care provided when the physician is called into the hospital. It is not intended to compensate physicians for routine consultations, routine care of inpatients, or providing group on-call for the shared patients of their practice group.

Physicians can’t be paid for more than one on-call rota or other program which includes funding for on-call on the same day. If there’s more than one on-call rota per specialty in an area, each rota must meet all the requirements for its category.

This program applies to physicians working under all payment modalities who don’t already have contractual arrangements to reimburse them for providing on-call/coverage for the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA). Physicians included in an academic funding plan (AFP) will be remunerated for their on-call services through the AFP.

Administrative guidelines

Determining whether you have met the eligibility requirements for your approved on-call category will be monitored by the Department of Health and Wellness (DHW) through an evaluation of on-call schedules, your billings, relevant information provided by the NSHA/IWK and any identified issues about coverage.

On-call coverage level will be evaluated through on-call coverage data submitted to DHW by the NSHA along with the current on-call group physician contact for each rota. For more details of the rota categories, review the Facility On-Call Eligibility Criteria.

Category 1 rotas

Level of coverage will be evaluated quarterly. If the days covered are less than 100%, notification will be provided to the NSHA and the physician on-call group lead, and the rota will be immediately re-classified as Category 2.

Category 2 rotas

The level of coverage for the NSHA will be evaluated annually and the level of coverage by any one physician will be evaluated quarterly. If the required criteria are not met, notification will be provided to the NSHA and the physician on-call group lead, and the rota will be immediately reclassified as Category 4.

Category 3 rotas

Level of coverage will be evaluated quarterly. If the days covered are less than 100 per cent, notification will be provided to the NSHA and the physician on-call group lead, and the rota will be immediately re-classified as Category 4.

Physician groups that are re-classified must re-apply, with the support of the NSHA/IWK, to be considered for a category change.