Right to bill may affect amount of tobacco counselling by MDs

Unpublished data from Health Canada indicate that only 32% of Canada's family physicians believe they can bill their health plans for providing smoking-cessation counselling to patients with no smoking-related illness. A CMA study of provincial billing codes determined that all provinces and territories except British Columbia and Alberta have billing codes for clinical tobacco interventions, which include counselling. Ontario leads the way with 4 separate codes.