Private Practice: BRAC Update

The Business Relations Advisory Committee (BRAC) was a former BCSOT board committee. During the transition from the closure of BCSOT to CAOT-BC, the BRAC continues to meet regularly to address business-related issues in private practice. The committee meets monthly via teleconference, (save for a summer and Christmas break) and also participates in face-to-face bi-annual meetings with ICBC.
Current members of the group include: Giovanna Boniface (managing director), Hilary Drummond, Tricia Earl, Kim Gibson, Salim Janmohamed, Wendy Lintott, Ricardo Nuno, Abdollah Rezazadeh and Pamela Russell and Lindsey Townsend. These members donate many hours of their time (thank you, thank you, thank you!!) to work on issues that benefit every therapist who practices in the private sector.
Hot Issues
The group always has a busy agenda with topics to discuss, however, the hot topics are usually related to ICBC and WorksafeBC:

• ICBC- The BRAC continues to advocate for an increase in the hourly rate. ICBC has not provided an hourly rate increase in 5 years. As previously outlined in communications from BCSOT, BCSOT made a formal request to ICBC on behalf of all occupational therapists working in private practive to review the rate and increase it appropriately. On many occasions, information has been provided as rationale for this increase (e.g. cost of living, consumer price index, comparison rates to other fee payers). This first request was 2 years ago. Since then, there have been several follow-up letters and meetings to discuss this issue, however, no change has been made at this time. As such, this remains high on the BRAC agenda for follow-up. We continue to work on this issue as I write this post.
• WorksafeBC- A recent RFQ request from WSBC for Community OT Services has closed. The members of BRAC are currently in discussions about forming a liaison committee with WSBC, to develop a collaborative and proactive relationship with WSBC. This request will be made to WSBC in the upcoming months.

I will be revising the terms of reference for this group this summer and hope to have new ones in place by September 1, 2012. If you are interested in joining this group, or if you have a private practice-related issue that you would like to discuss, please contact me directly at gboniface@caot.ca

-Giovanna Boniface