DRAFT – Policy Statement on Virtual Care
Last updated: November 2025
New Brunswick Medical Society Position
The New Brunswick Medical Society (NBMS) recognizes that virtual care is an important tool used by healthcare providers. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated that virtual care has great value as an effective method of improving access to care for patients, by eliminating geographic barriers, providing enhanced access to mental health care, aiding patients with mobility limitations, and providing more convenient and timely access to care, all of which reduces wait times for some services.
NBMS Recommends:
That virtual care be made permanent, as an insured service under New Brunswick Medicare.
That physicians are granted discretion over when to utilize virtual care and the different virtual modalities, including services provided asynchronously via secure email or text messaging.
The NBMS acknowledges the limitations presented by virtual care when compared to the ideal standard, which is in-person care. However, there are major benefits to having a reliable option for virtual care as part of the Patient Medical Home approach to primary care.[1] As the pandemic has shown, expanding patient access to physicians through virtual care has enhanced convenience and timely access for patients. Under that model, the current approach to remuneration for in-person and virtual care, regardless of the mode, should continue, leaving it up to physicians to make the determination when to employ virtual care or an in-person approach to care.
Background
Virtual care, in the form of Telemedicine and Telehealth, has been a feature of the healthcare system in New Brunswick since the 1990’s. Medical care, offered “virtually,” can occur with technology as common as a landline telephone, mobile device, videoconference or text message; there does not appear to be any limit to what modern technology offers as solutions when it comes to the provision of virtual healthcare. Virtual care is evolving and has quickly become a characteristic of our device-driven lives.
Virtual care rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic when many in-person interactions were prohibited due to provincial government policies such as social distancing and lockdowns. At the onset of the global pandemic, the provincial government moved quickly to implement a virtual system whereby patients could access needed care from their physicians in a timely fashion, without engaging in an in-person visit. A memo from New Brunswick Medicare was circulated to physicians advising of a new system which was created to enable:
- billing instructions for physicians;
- routine/follow-up virtual care visits for “telephone or other digital media” to replace regular face to face meetings;
- virtual care billing of psychotherapy and psychiatric care codes.
In the absence of any material changes during the preceding period, virtual care has been proceeding in New Brunswick as an uninsured service based on the original March 2020 Medicare memos.
Under the Tentative Physician Services Agreement 2025-2029, virtual care will become an insured service under New Brunswick Medicare.
Virtual Care Task Force
A Task Force on Virtual Care was established by the April 2020 Physician Services Master Agreement to create a new framework for virtual care in New Brunswick. Membership of the Task Force included representatives from: the Department of Health; the Regional Health Authorities; the NBMS; and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick.
The Task Force recommended the following definition for virtual care:
“Any interaction with patients and/or members of their circle of care, occurring remotely, using any forms of communication or technologies with the aim of facilitating or maximizing the quality and effectiveness of patient care when it is in the best interest of the patient. Virtual care is to be used to optimize and complement in-person care. It is not acceptable to solely practice virtual medicine.”
The NBMS endorses this definition for virtual care and recommends it be used as a foundational principle for virtual care programming in New Brunswick.
Analysis
Patient Feedback
Survey data from patients show they like the idea of virtual care and they appear to be quite comfortable accessing it.[2] The care patients receive appears to be positive, with 80.5% agreeing their health concerns
were “addressed successfully” and overall satisfaction exceeded 83%.[3] The primary benefit cited by both physicians and patients for virtual care, is “improved patient access,” allowing patients to connect with healthcare providers online or by phone, making it easier to receive care without needing to travel or sit in a waiting room for an extended period of time. Because of this benefit, virtual care has quickly become deeply integrated into our healthcare delivery systems.
Relevant Legislation
Medical Services Payment Act
Medical Services Payment Act Regulation 84-20
References
New Brunswick Health Council, Data Tables, Data Tables | New Brunswick Health Council
History
Presented to the Economics Committee October 22, 2025 and November 25, 2025
Presented to the NBMS Board December 5, 2025
[1] OPUS MD | Advancing Primary Care: The Patient Medical Home Model in New Brunswick
[2] Virtual Care Services | New Brunswick Health Council 79% of patients indicated they could connect to virtual care when they needed to (2023) and 44.6% reporting they had a virtual care consultation in the last month (2023).
[3] Virtual Care Services | New Brunswick Health Council
Contact
Jamie Yeamans, Policy and Economics Specialist, New Brunswick Medical Society at jyeamans@nbms.nb.ca