The MSP Fee-Code Cut Is Now Hitting Chronic-Illness Care

The chronic-care warning has moved from policy fight to patient consequence.

Black Press, in a report carried by the Maple Ridge News, says the BC Centre for Long COVID, ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia treats approximately 8,500 patients through virtual group settings. These are not casual wellness seminars. The report describes patients with fibromyalgia, Long COVID and related chronic illnesses using the clinic to ask physicians questions, discuss medication, receive prescriptions after one-on-one assessment, and access support they cannot easily find in regular primary care.

The fee change is now concrete. The report says the MSP reimbursement that once allowed $14.26 per patient for every half-hour of care with 30 patients in a group is now $11.42 after 20 patients are admitted into a group. BC-CLMF says that, combined with the new patient cap, amounts to a 52% overall net revenue loss.

The clinic’s own notice is even plainer. It says the new rules started November 1, 2026, and that virtual group fees face both a maximum of 30 patients and a 25% reduction in payment while in-person groups remain unchanged. It says the clinic will continue core physician-led services, new consults, medication groups and paperwork help. But it also says it will no longer offer groups with multidisciplinary team members, including occupational therapy, physiotherapy, dietician, counsellor and psychologist support, along with weekly special lectures and monthly hypermobility webinars.

That is the accountability point. A system-level billing decision is now tied, by the clinic’s own public notice and the news report, to fewer supports for people with complex, often disabling illnesses. Dr. Jane McKay told Black Press the ministry did not inform the clinic about the reimbursement-fee deduction, and said the funding loss left the clinic with a “barebones model.”

The Health Ministry gave a different account. It told the Nelson Star that virtual-health-group changes had been in development for more than a year and included communication with BC-CLMF. The ministry also said the clinic confirmed in May 2026 that it believed its model could be financially viable with a 30-patient cap. According to the report, the ministry did not answer additional questions about the fee reduction.

Both claims cannot simply be waved away with a talking point. If the ministry communicated only the cap, but not the effective fee reduction, that is a serious notice problem. If the ministry believed the clinic had accepted financial viability, then British Columbians deserve to see the patient-impact analysis that reconciled that belief with the service cuts now described by the clinic.

This is what “efficiency” looks like when the patient ledger is finally opened: fewer multidisciplinary groups, stricter limits, new no-show penalties, and chronic-illness patients left to wonder which support disappears next. The NDP health record should be judged not by whether a fee code was administratively tidy, but by whether vulnerable patients still had access after the change took effect.