Covid19 Loan Repayments Explained

Are you seeing deductions for “EMERG ADVANCE (COVID19) RECOVERY” and aren’t sure where the numbers come from? Here is a brief explainer for you.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic arriving in Ontario in March 2020, you may recall that life changed dramatically for a while! The majority of clinics shut down for a time, and health care was provided on an emergency only basis. In April of 2020, the Ministry of Health recognized the need to address cash flow issues for Ontario physicians who were affected by these shut downs, and established the Covid-19 Advance Payment Program. This program provided monthly, interest-free loans to eligible doctors. Loan payments were distributed in May, June, and July 2020. These were listed on your Remittance Advice (RA) reports with the notation of “EMERG ADVANCE PAYMENT (COVID19)”. In order to determine the total amount you may have received, you will need to access your RA statements from May-July 2020, and total the amounts from each of the three months.

The Ministry of Health communicated that these loans were to be paid back once it was determined that physicians could return to regular work. In March 2021, MOH communicated that re-payment of loans would begin the following month, in April 2021. At that time, the plan was to recoup loans over a period of six months, in six equal payments. And so the first repayment (done in the form of a deduction of current billing) was taken. 

Unfortunately, by the end of April 2021, Covid-19 cases had surged again causing more interruptions and shut downs, and so the loan repayment plan was temporarily suspended.

During the summer of 2023, MOH determined that it was time to begin the repayment program again. This time, instead of following the “six equal payments” plan laid out in 2021, it was decided that deductions would be taken from current billing over a period of 12 months, with 12 equal payments. This was done in order to ease financial strain on physicians. The first of these was taken in August 2023, and they continued monthly up to and including July 2024, which was the last payment.

Here is the math in a nutshell:

$ May 2020 amount given + $ Jun 2020 amount given + $July 2020 amount given = Total $ amount of loan given.

In April 2021, Total $ amount of loan given divided by (/) 6 = first installment repaid to MOH by RA deduction, leaving 5/6 of Total $ amount of loan given to be repaid.

In August 2023, 5/6 Total $ amount of loan given divided by (/) 12 = amount of each monthly installment taken from RAs from August 2023 – July 2024. Amounts were rounded to the nearest dollar, with any remaining amounts (generally a few dollars) added to the last payment.