8,500 Chronic-Care Patients Deserved Notice Before the MSP Rule Changed
A working virtual-care model for long COVID, ME/CFS and fibromyalgia patients should not be squeezed by a quiet election-period billing change without a public plan for the people affected.
CHEK News reports that B.C. ordered a change to MSP billing for group medical virtual visits that affects the BC Centre for Long Covid, ME/CFS, and Fibromyalgia, a clinic serving 8,500 chronic-illness patients. The date matters: CHEK says the new fee schedule was ordered on September 24, 2026, two days after the provincial election was called.
The clinic’s model is not a luxury add-on. According to CHEK, it uses group telehealth sessions for patients with long COVID, ME/CFS and fibromyalgia, including people who are homebound or bedbound, and it brings in allied health specialists such as nutritionists, psychologists and naturopaths. For patients who cannot easily travel to care, the screen is not convenience. It is access.
The billing change goes directly at that model. CHEK reports that the old schedule allowed the clinic to bill each patient every half hour, down to a capped amount. Under the new schedule, billable patients are capped at 30, and additional patients in a group session cannot be billed through MSP. Dr. Jane McKay told CHEK the physicians can still pay themselves, but the clinic cannot subcontract the allied-health portion under the new fee schedule.
That is the practical issue voters should judge. A government can describe a billing code as technical, but if the result is that allied health specialists leave a chronic-care program, the effect is not technical for patients. CHEK reported that psychologist Dr. Angela Grace, one of the clinic’s allied health specialists and a long-COVID patient, will no longer be able to see clinic patients virtually after November 1 unless they seek private services.
The record is even harder to dismiss because the clinic commissioned MNP to study the model. CHEK reports the analysis found $6.85 in social and economic value for every MSP dollar invested, with surveyed patients reporting improved physical and mental health. That is not proof that every billing rule must stay unchanged forever. It is a strong reason to explain the change openly before it disrupts care.
Instead, the ministry’s response to CHEK was that election-period communications are limited to critical health and public-safety information. That may explain why officials did not offer a full statement. It does not explain why an election-period fee change was ordered in the first place, why clinicians say they were blindsided, or what patients are supposed to do if services shrink.
David Eby asked British Columbians for another mandate while this health-care file moved in the background. The defensible demand is modest: release the rationale, the patient-impact assessment, the transition plan, and the name of the decision-maker. Eight thousand five hundred chronic-care patients should not have to discover the future of their care by checking a fee schedule.