Improve patient access to medical services. Meet the wide spectrum of patient care needs. Provide timely access to specialists and ensure the availability of modern equipment and technologies are available.

• The formation of the Ontario Specialists Association (OSA) as the organization that negotiates directly with the provincial government to develop and implement Physician Services Agreements that are fair and representative of the unique needs of specialist physicians in Ontario will enhance patient care all across the province.

• It will do so by forging a new, productive relationship between the provincial government and specialist physicians who diagnose, treat, manage and care for patients requiring specialty care in Ontario.

• This relationship will employ a collaborative approach to ensuring that limited provincial health care funding is effectively targeted to meet the growing and increasingly complex needs of these patients.

• Moreover, it will create a forum for government and specialist physicians to work together to identify and address areas of inefficiency in the health care system while establishing and maintaining fair remuneration for these physician services.

• The ongoing negotiations impasse between the Ontario government and the OMA (i.e. no physician services contract for more than 5 years) is hurting patients and demonstrates that change to the current model is long overdue.  A re-organized, streamlined negotiations model that focuses exclusively on the provision of medical specialists’ services in Ontario is needed.