P-1389

The Ministry of Health (the Ministry) received a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) for a list of the names and incomes of the ten highest billing general practitioners in Metropolitan Toronto. In response to the request, the Ministry created a record by extracting the relevant information from one of its Provider Services Branch databases. The record consisted of four columns of figures listing the dollar amounts of the ten highest billings, the corresponding practitioner's identification number, a code for each practitioner's specialization and a code for the location of each practitioner. As all of the information related to general practitioners in Metropolitan Toronto, the last two columns contained identical information for each of these individuals. The Ministry denied access to the record based on the following exemption under the Act:

• invasion of privacy - section 21(1)

The requester (now the appellant) appealed the Ministry's decision. The appellant also maintains that there is a compelling public interest in the disclosure of the information at issue (section 23 of the Act).

During the mediation of the appeal, the appellant narrowed the scope of her request to the information contained in the column listing the dollar amounts of each of the ten doctors' total billings for the year preceding October 2, 1996. Accordingly, the practitioners' names, their numbers and other information about them are no longer at issue.

This office sent a Notice of Inquiry to the appellant, the Ministry and the ten practitioners whose information is contained in the record (the affected persons). Representations were received from the appellant, the Ministry and six affected persons. None of the affected persons consented to the disclosure of their billing information.

• FIPPA
• 2(1) personal information

• amount of OHIP billings
• amount of OHIP billings