Lone Warman, Sask., blood clinic closes due to billing formula

Residents in Warman now have to drive to Saskatoon to have their blood work completed. The city's only medical clinic has closed its blood lab, due to rising costs stemming from a unique billing formula where the clinic doesn't always get paid for the blood work it performs. 

The clinic's manager, Sherran Bradley, was on CBC's Saskatoon Morning explaining how her clinic's billing set up brought about the closure. 

The clinic was originally set up so that blood services were offered for family practice patients only. That was six years ago, before the city saw large population gains, and higher health care demands.

"Most people come in to see their family doctor, then they go to an outside resource to do their blood work. In a situation like that, both the doctor and the [outside resource] receive payment for the service," she said, with the payment coming from the health region. 

The Warman clinic is different, however.

"Because we offer those services under one roof, we don't get paid for both. The doctor gets paid for his services, but the blood clinic doesn't get money for doing the blood work," Bradley explained. 

On the rare occasion that a patient only comes to the clinic for blood work, without a visit to the doctor, then the clinic will be paid for providing that service, Bradley explained.

She said the expenses incurred to do the blood work "outweigh the expectations of having to do it."

She also noted that the clinic's expenses are now at "tens of thousands of dollars," requiring pay for a blood specialist, pay for transporting blood to Saskatoon and pay for doing the actually blood work. 

Saskatoon uses different formula

Conversely in Saskatoon, blood services are provided by Gamma-Dynacare, a group that's contracted through the Saskatoon Health Region. They do get paid when people use their services. 

Bradly said her clinic has talked to Gamma-Dynacare about providing service in Warman, but the group said it's not interested. 

A spokeswoman with the Saskatoon Health Region said the health region is aware of the problem in Warman, and is reviewing the situation. 

The health region is try to work with the community to find a possible solution, the spokeswoman said.