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The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (the Ministry) received a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) for access to:
- The amounts that the top 10 billing general practitioners/family doctors in Toronto billed OHIP [Ontario Health Insurance Plan] in the most recent fiscal year.
- The fee codes of the top 10 items that each individual doctor billed most frequently and a brief description of those codes.
- The gross amount paid in the most recent fiscal year next to each of the 10 fee codes for every one of the 10 doctors.
The Ministry identified one responsive record. Before responding to the requester, the Ministry notified the 10 doctors whose information appears on the record (the affected parties) pursuant to section 28 of the Act, seeking submissions on whether the information should be disclosed. Six affected parties responded to the Ministry's notice, all of them objecting to disclosure.
The Ministry then issued a decision letter to the requester, granting access to the total fees paid to each of the 10 doctors. The Ministry denied access to the fee codes, the itemized fee payments, and billing service descriptions. The Ministry took the position that this information constitutes "personal information" of the individual doctors, and qualifies for exemption under section 21(1) of the Act (invasion of privacy). The Ministry identified the presumption against disclosure in subsection 21(3)(f) in support of the exemption claim.
The requester, now the appellant, appealed the Ministry's decision.
The appeal was streamed to the adjudication stage of the appeal process. I sent a Notice of Inquiry to the Ministry, initially, setting out the issues and seeking representations. The Ministry responded with representations. I then sent the Notice to the 10 affected parties, five of whom also provided representations. Finally, I sent the Notice to the appellant along with the non-confidential portions of the Ministry's representations. The appellant chose not to submit representations.
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