BATs: FP business arrangement types, compensation and workforce

Up to BAT: Examining the association between ‘business arrangement types’, family physician compensation and workforce outcomes  (April 2026- March 2029)

Despite the near universal caveat that gross clinical payments provide inaccurate estimates of physician income, little research has examined how actual physician income is derived. The project contributes to greater system accountability by improving our understanding of family physician (FP) compensation and its impact on equity and access to care. Accurate estimates of income are needed to ensure fair and appropriate compensation for FPs and address inequities in compensation between medical specialties.
This project will shed greater light on how policies related to business arrangements influence FP workforce outcomes.

Research Question and Objectives
What are the business arrangements of FPs in British Columbia (BC) and Ontario? How do business arrangements influence FPs’ compensation and workforce outcomes? The goal of this project is to create a typology of FPs’ business arrangements and examine the impact of business
arrangement types (BATs) on FP workforce outcomes. The specific objectives of this mixed methods, multiple case study are:
1. To identify the elements that comprise business arrangements and describe how they
interact to affect FP income;
2. To develop a typology of FP business arrangements;
3. To examine the relationship between different FP BATs and workforce outcomes; and
4. To identify the policy implications of FP BATs.

This pragmatic, mixed-methods project consists of a two-phase multiple case study.
Phase one of the case study (typology development) consists of interviews with FPs, interviews with subject matter experts (hereafter experts), and a document analysis. Phase two (typology confirmation) consists of a survey of FPs and ‘confirmation/outlier’ interviews with FPs and experts.

Knowledge Translation
Our end-of-grant KT goals are to: 1) disseminate findings to inform policy and program discussions, 2) encourage further research, and 3) raise awareness of study findings among FPs, physician professional organizations, and the public.