TORONTO, January 28, 2026 — Canadian doctors are losing a collective 20 million hours annually to paperwork, a new report reveals, hindering their ability to provide patient care and contributing to growing healthcare challenges across the country.
Red Tape Steals Time From Patient Care
Table of Contents
A new report highlights the administrative burden on Canadian physicians, impacting access to healthcare for millions.
- Canadian doctors spend an average of nine hours per week on administrative tasks.
- Nearly half of this time is dedicated to what physicians deem unnecessary red tape.
- The administrative burden is contributing to physician burnout and a shortage of family doctors.
- Reduced paperwork could free up doctors to see more patients and improve healthcare access.
Dr. Natasha Aziz, a family physician in Ontario’s Durham Region, knows the feeling all too well. “The paperwork just seems to never sleep. Like, every morning you wake up, there’s dozens of things in your inbox,” she said. Even during patient appointments, she finds herself pulled away to handle documentation, such as filling out insurance or government forms.
What is driving this administrative overload for Canadian doctors? According to a report from the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which surveyed 1,924 physicians, doctors in Canada each spend, on average, nine hours per week on administrative tasks, totaling 42.7 million hours annually across the country.
The Cost of Unnecessary Paperwork
Nearly half of this work – 47 percent – is considered unnecessary red tape, diverting physicians from direct patient care. “It’s a burden. It’s taking a toll on physicians, and it is really red tape disease,” said Dr. Margot Burnell, president of the Canadian Medical Association, an oncologist, in an interview with As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal.
The burden falls disproportionately on family physicians, a group already facing a critical shortage. As a result, doctors are increasingly limiting their patient intake or leaving family practice altogether, with a quarter considering early retirement or quitting the profession. This trend exacerbates existing problems with long wait times, emergency room closures, and the fact that one in five Canadians currently lack a family doctor.
However, there’s a clear path forward. According to the report, 44 percent of doctors would dedicate more time to existing patients with reduced paperwork, while 43 percent would welcome new patients. “So by decreasing the admin burden, everybody wins,” Burnell said. “The physician wins, the patients win, and the health-care system wins.”
Beyond Requisitions: The True Scope of the Problem
The paperwork Aziz faces extends far beyond standard tasks like ordering tests and reviewing lab results. It involves tracking down patient information scattered across multiple systems and repeatedly submitting the same information due to varying requirements from pharmacies and clinics. Digitization, she notes, isn’t always a solution, as software often falls short of streamlining processes.
“Sometimes it’s one step forward, two steps back,” Aziz explained. “You have to click a dozen boxes and then the patient’s history won’t populate because it has a dash, which is not an allowed character, you know?”
A particularly frustrating issue is the volume of complex forms requested by insurance companies and employers. “Every day we have patients that bring forms that they don’t want done, we don’t want done, but their employer wants done,” Aziz said. This work isn’t covered by provincial health insurance, leaving patients to bear the cost. She advocates for legislation requiring third parties to cover the cost of these forms, predicting a significant reduction in unnecessary requests.
Potential Solutions on the Horizon
The report outlines several recommendations to alleviate the administrative burden on doctors, including eliminating sick notes, implementing AI scribes to summarize patient encounters, simplifying insurance and tax forms, delegating tasks to other healthcare professionals, and providing dedicated time for administrative work.
Burnell says the CMA is actively collaborating with stakeholders to implement these changes. Several provinces have already passed legislation limiting the demand for sick notes, and many healthcare clinics are piloting AI scribes, often through government programs, to assess their accuracy and cybersecurity. The CMA is also working with the Canada Revenue Agency to simplify paperwork related to the Canada Pension Plan Disability and the Disability Tax Credit – a 15-page form that cannot even be submitted via email.
“We are making progress,” Burnell said.
A Glimmer of Hope in Nova Scotia
Dr. Ajantha Jayabarathan, a family doctor in Halifax, has witnessed positive changes firsthand. Nova Scotia began implementing its red tape reduction plan for healthcare in 2021, and as of 2025, the government reports reducing 435,000 hours of administrative work for physicians.
Sick notes are now handled by caseworkers, referrals for physiotherapy no longer require a physician’s signature, and pharmacare and requisition forms have been centralized. “I have a sense of relief that once, for example, if it is a referral for surgery or a referral of MRI or ultrasound, I know I’ve done due diligence, I’ve indicated the urgency level, it’s gone to a central repository and somebody is managing it,” she said. “Whereas in the past, we would send it and it would be this dark abyss and we’d never know if the note landed, and if we heard back, it was a miracle.”
The Promise of AI
The implementation of AI scribes has been particularly transformative. With patient consent, the software records appointments and generates summaries, providing patients with a record of their care. “It really has revolutionized what I’m able to do with patients,” Jayabarathan said. “Patients have been over the moon about it.”
Both Burnell and Jayabarathan emphasize that AI tools require human oversight to ensure accuracy. Jayabarathan remains optimistic about the future, encouraging other provinces to adopt similar strategies. “We’re doing some remarkable things,” she said. “And within the next two to three years we’re going to see quite a turnaround in the health system itself.”
