SGIMBC Member Newsletter 2025
In this edition:
Navigation to individual sections via links
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- New President’s Welcome
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- Executive Priorities
- Request for Information
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- Executive Committee Meetings (member invite)
- AGM Information
- Fee Code Updates
- GIM Leadership Awards
- UBC Division of Community Medicine
- Allied Healthcare Providers
- Gender Disparity in GIM
- Consultant Specialists of BC
- Website Updates
- New President’s Welcome
New President’s Welcome
First off – thanks for taking the time to actually visit our website and read the latest Newsletter. It is my pleasure to take over as President of SGIM and I look forward to connecting with more of you throughout the year so that, as an organization, we can better serve our members.
For those of you that I don’t know, I am a GIM (obviously) based at Lions Gate Hospital with an outpatient practice close-by in North Vancouver. I also spend a bit of time in Penticton working at their hospital and the rest of my time either road biking or travelling as far and wide as I can in search of a beautiful vista and good meal.
Executive Priorities
In order to prepare for the upcoming year, I tried to listen and understand what is important to you while sitting at our recent AGM. Three major themes seemed to keep coming up: Identity, Compensation and Broad Representation.
GIM has always been difficult to define (my parents still have no clue what I do) and this is a problem – we can’t do what we do best if other physicians, hospital administrators, politicians and the general public don’t know what that is. Directly flowing from that, no one is going to pay us for the value that we bring if they don’t understand it. Finally, how is the best way to do all this? Well, I have my thoughts but I’d rather hear from you (all of you!) so that is why representation and outreach within this organization matters.
So that’s the goal. That’s what we want to do this year. How we end up doing it will be up to myself and the excellent team I have with me as our Executive Board. And maybe you, too. Never hesitate to connect with me directly – I hope you do.
~ Paul Hertz, President
Request for Information
We are continuing to develop a network of GIM contacts throughout the province to assist in our goal to better servce our entire membership.
As such, if you are the IM head/lead at your site we strongly encourage you to reach out to myself or our Executive Assistant. Or if you are able to ask that person to reach out to myself or Executive Assistant it would be greatly appreciated!
Executive Committee Meetings
A reminder that all members in good standing are welcome to attend a SGIMBC Executive Committee meeting as a non-voting observer.
Meetings are held monthly via Zoom for approximately 2hrs, usually on a weekday evening starting at 7:30pm.
If you are interested in joining please feel free to email shannon.harrison@sgimbc.org.
Annual General Meetings
Thank you to our members who were able to join this year’s AGM to discuss key issues and topics that relate to all our colleagues across the province. It was a wonderful opportunity to share the success, trials and tribulations of GIM around the province. All meeting documents (including draft Minutes) are now uploaded and available for all active members of SGIM via our website (you will need to sign up and create a password if you haven’t done so already).
In addition to using this discussion to inform how we are going to spend the next year (see Executive Priorities), we did accomplish some important business.
Given the rising costs associated with inflation over the past several years, we decided NOT to increase membership fees this year. However, in future years, we will tie increases to inflation to offset our own additional costs as a society and increase the resources available for our members.
We also updated our Bylaws and approved a stipend for our President to compensate the hours of unpaid time that they spend working for SGIM.
We would like to continually improve the content, logistics and engagment for these annual meetings. Please complete this quick survey (regardless of whether you attended or not) and let us know your thoughts. All submissions are anonymous.
ANNOUNCEMENT
The 2025 AGM will be held on: Saturday, November 22nd, 2025
Please hold this date in calendars until the official invitation it sent out to all members later in the spring. Please ensure your email address is up to date by emailing membership@sgimbc.org so that you receive key updates.
Click here for past AGM information and documentation
New Fees
After several years of advocacy on the part of SGIM, the 2 medical conditions fee codes were reinstated in 2024:
Consult: 32312 (32373) – $274.49
Inpatient follow-up: 32318 (no telehealth code) – $85.94
Outpatient follow up: 32317 (32366) – $109.55
The values are set to be approximately halfway between the single medical condition codes and the 3 medical conditions codes. All the same restrictions on the 3 medical conditions codes (list of diagnoses, limits on follow-ups, etc) apply to these codes as well.
After several years of advocacy on the part of Consultant Specialists of BC (cSBC), there are two new codes for all specialists to use:
Specialists Text Message Advice (78710): $20
Similar to the 10001 (Phone Advice), this can be used to provider real-time two way communication in lieu of a full consult when the advice is given via text.
Specialist Initiation of Conference (78711): $60
Also related to the 10001, this can be used by the referring physician to compensate for the time taken to phone specialists for advice.
Don’t forget to join cSBC as well as SGIM as they plan to increase advocacy, including media coverage, to highlight the declining access to Specialist care.
Click here for general fee code and billing information.
Fee Code Increases
Due to the ongoing work of SGIM, several retro payments were paid out in the past several months (notably in Oct and Jan).
You may have noticed increases of 5-20% due to GIM continuing to be underfunded relative to other specialties
SGIM distributed the funds based on your feedback during the AGM
Most of the funds went towards increasing our consultation fees with the remainder mostly going to inpatient fee codes as these still remain undervalued in the opinion of most of the members
Several of the SSC fees have gone up (retroactive to Apr 2024)
Some of these changes have been quite substantial (such as a 25% jump in the 10001 to $75 (from $60) and a 150% increase in the 10006 to $25 (from $11)
As more money is awarded, we will continuously re-evaluate this process (with ongoing input from the membership). Please reach out to the Executive if you have any suggestions, concerns or ideas!
Click here for general fee code and billing information.
New IM Section
MSP and DoBC have approved a new, distinct section of Internists: “Internal Medicine”.
These physicians are those that practice IM but are NOT eligible for the GIM-specific codes (i.e. 311).
They will now control all IM codes such as 310, 308, 307, etc. We will retain control of all GIM codes such as 32210, 32208, 32207, etc.
Please do NOT bill the IM codes unless you want to leave money on the table.
GIM Leadership Awards
The SGIMBC endeavours to recognize general internists across the province who are taking leadership roles in their community, health authority or in the province.
APPLICATIONS OPEN FOR THE 2025 AWARDS YEAR
The deadline is October 1st, 2025.
- Early Leadership Award:
To recognize the leadership role of SGIMBC members who are within the early years of their career. $1000 will be awarded. - Career Leadership Award:
To recognize the leadership role of SGIMBC members who are well established in their GIM career. $1000 will be awarded. - Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award:
To recognize the champion role of SGIMBC members as it relates to equity, diversity and inclusion within the medical community. $1000 will be awarded. - Doctors of BC Committee Award:
To acknowledge members in good standing who are successful in being appointed to a Doctors of BC committee with a one-time award of $500.
Please submit documentation via the new Online Submission Form or email membership@sgimbc.org. Winners will be announced at the 2025 AGM.
UBC Division General Internal Medicine – Community
Clinical Faculty – If any GIM colleagues are teaching UBC learners and do not have a Clinical Faculty Appointment, please contact Denise Jaworsky via email (denise.jaworksy@ubc.ca).
Allied Healthcare Providers
Doctors of BC offers an online toolkit to assist in the addition of Allied Health Care Providers to help to your outpatient practice. Some specialities (i.e. Rheumatology) have specific fee codes to facilitate this but GIM is not eligible for those codes at this time. We will continue to explore whether this will be beneficial to our members.
Gender Disparity in GIM
In 2023 Denise Jaworsky presented the latest data on gender disparity in GIM at the AGM. As a society we do not yet have a plan to address this very important issue. If anyone is interested in forming a working group to help, please contact shannon.harrison@sgimbc.org
Consultant Specialists of BC
CSBC strives to represent all BC Specialist physicians, advocating for fee-for-service and non-fee-for-service doctors. They are an independent organization, separate from Doctors of BC (for all physicians), individual Specialty sections (tasked with Specialty-specific issues), and BC Family Doctors (the sister organization for the family doctor colleagues).
The SGIMBC Executive encourages all GIM physicians to sign up to become a CSBC member – the more physicians involved the better we are represented where decisions are being made.
Website Updates
We are actively working on a new section of our website that will be a hub of recent and relevant publications. Stay tuned for more details!