A health care provider working a community of habit clinics throughout Ontario, together with an Ottawa location that gives safer opioid provide, is billing public insurance coverage about $2.5 million per yr.
Dr. Suman Koka is the only officer and director of Northwood Restoration, which has areas in North York, Hamilton and Manitoulin Island. It operates beneath the identify Restoration North in Sudbury, Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie.
Northwood Restoration opened its first Ottawa location in Hintonburg final yr, however quietly moved it to Chinatown this March.
Neighbours in each Hintonburg and Chinatown have criticized Koka for prescribing opioid medicines to fentanyl customers. They are saying his sufferers are buying and selling the prescribed drugs on the road to get more durable substances, attracting sellers and crime to the world.
Metropolis councillors representing each neighbourhoods have urged Northwood Restoration to alter its operations or shut down.
In an interview final month, Koka confirmed that the Ottawa clinic affords safer provide, a hurt discount strategy meant to assist customers substitute avenue medication like fentanyl with safer prescription narcotics.
Amongst different remedies, Koka prescribes hydromorphone, which can be identified by the commerce identify Dilaudid. He confirmed that he primarily meets with sufferers on the Ottawa clinic remotely via telemedicine.
CBC submitted a freedom of data request to the Ontario Ministry of Well being searching for data of Koka’s whole billing to the Ontario Well being Insurance coverage Plan (OHIP). It reveals that he billed simply over $2.3 million in 2023 and almost $2.5 million in 2024.
These totals don’t symbolize Koka’s revenue or take-home pay, since at the least a number of the cash can be used to cowl overhead prices at his clinics, which may embody lease, provides and administrative workers.
However the totals are far in extra of typical billing. The common gross scientific cost for Ontario physicians was $388,557 in 2022-23, based on the Canadian Institute for Well being Data. Funds for the highest quintile — the highest 20 per cent of physicians by billing — have been $568,432 on common.
CBC additionally submitted a request for Koka’s billing for telemedicine particularly. He billed $524,302 for digital care companies in 2024, together with video and phone consultations.
The figures have been present as of January 22 of this yr. The paperwork embody a observe that physicians nonetheless have a three-month interval to submit extra claims for processing.
Koka had beforehand appeared on a Toronto Star database of extremely paid medical doctors revealed in 2019. Based on the Sudbury Star, which cited the Toronto Star’s reporting, Koka billed $1.5 million in 2018-19, placing him within the high one per cent of medical doctors ranked by OHIP billing.
Koka didn’t reply to a request this week with detailed questions on his 2023 and 2024 billing. He didn’t clarify how he is ready to personally see sufficient sufferers to invoice hundreds of thousands of {dollars} per yr, or whether or not he’s delegating a number of the care.
However in a March interview, CBC requested him whether or not he was nonetheless certainly one of Ontario’s highest paid medical doctors.
“I am undecided about that, however I will let you know I am most likely one of many hardest working medical doctors in Ontario,” he mentioned on the time.
Beforehand cautioned for telemedicine practices
Doug Angus, a professor emeritus on the College of Ottawa’s Telford College of Administration, mentioned Koka must see a really excessive quantity of sufferers to generate that type of cash.
Angus, who focuses on well being economics, mentioned Koka’s reliance on digital care may permit him to cycle via sufferers rapidly.
“That is modified the sport utterly,” he mentioned. “There’s quite a lot of basic practitioners who would like to have that type of scenario, however there is not any approach they’ll generate that type of gross earnings with face-to-face visits.”
He mentioned that the ministry has tried to rein in excessive billers, however it’s troublesome to observe. He mentioned they have not but addressed the query of what number of sufferers a health care provider can successfully see.
Koka’s membership web page on the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons web site exhibits he has 15 follow areas, in addition to hospital privileges on the Well being Sciences North regional hospital in Sudbury. His medical skilled company has 13 completely different addresses.
The school cautioned him in 2019, after a affected person complained that Koka did not meet with him in any respect. As a substitute, a doctor assistant at his workplace prescribed methadone after a digital appointment.
The school discovered no signal that the doctor assistant had correct coaching — and famous that delegating care is simply applicable within the context of an current doctor-patient relationship, which didn’t exist in that case.
Northwood Restoration’s earlier location in Hintonburg, the place neighbours reported drug diversion and violence exterior the ability. (Francis Ferland/CBC)
Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster met with Koka final month, together with space MPP Catherine McKenney. In a publish to her web siteTroster mentioned she insisted on wraparound helps for sufferers and higher safety protocols through the assembly.
She mentioned the clinic has employed a safety guard and a nurse and dedicated to eradicating folks from this system in the event that they divert their medicines.
In his March interview with CBC, Koka mentioned Northwood Restoration takes drug diversion very severely. He mentioned sufferers discovered to be buying and selling or promoting their medicines are discharged from this system.
Based on Koka, even suspicion can lead the clinic to place sufferers beneath a stricter regime the place they have to take doses on web site.
He mentioned telemedicine has elevated the variety of folks he is ready to see, permitting extra folks to entry habit therapy.
“Whether or not it is via video convention or whether or not via in particular person, the interplay is similar,” he mentioned.
