Alberta College of Paramedics fee increase

[kevkei]

Just out of curiosity Kev, how is Edmonton handling the " no more mass payment of fee's"?

Are they giving employees the extra on their cheques or are they sending a seperate cheque for every employee?

We make the payment and then submit for reimbursement. Comes seperate from our regular pay (otherwise it would be taxed as income).

[altamedic]

What I Like is they give other professions yearly dues.... but not compared to other provinces... Anyone have any light on what say Sk, or On, Pay?

[BEorP]

What I Like is they give other professions yearly dues.... but not compared to other provinces... Anyone have any light on what say Sk, or On, Pay?

There is no College of Paramedics in Ontario.

[Neesie]

Up until now, Saskatchewan has not had a registration fee. However, they are developing the Saskatchewan college of paramedics and it appears that in 2008 there will be a fee of $175.00 For services such as mine (and I believe we are the only one) we have alberta fees of $325.00 and now Saskatchewan fees of $175.00. That will be $500.00 we have to pay just to be allowed to work. And the bad thing is that comes out of OUR pockets. We have to subsidies reimbursements at work. It is a heafty fee for us that work full time never mind the part timers. No incentive for them to keep working. (Most of our partimers don't work much so it is a huge fee for them to pay. Some of them probably don't make that much in 6 months.)

I think the fee is ridiculous in AB. Especially now with the on line con-ed. They don't even have the expenses of having to send it out by mail anymore. How come the incredible increase in fees???

[tniuqs]

Dear Nessie:

Yes I agree with you, on line communications are far more timely, economical and greener to. You can claim theses fees on your taxes, (in association or union fees) initially out of pocket sure enough bites hard, but you do receive credits off the top of your gross...gosh I sure hope an ex bean counter does not see this..... :shock:

cheers

[emtannie]

tniuqs... I know how much you adore those bean counting turned EMTs. They make darn fun pardners non?! don't forget to turn up that hearing aid! :wink:

LOL..... ok, I just had to comment on this...... being a bean counter for many years (a commercial bank manager for 15 years)..... I still have to agree with tniuqs. It is easy to change the fiscal year end so that our fees are not due at the end of December.

And, I as well can answer yes to your questions...

I have tried to be on some of the committees of ACP, most recently the CBT one... and the timing of meetings and the distance I have to travel is prohibitive. Some of the things that could be done by electronic means isn't, and other things they try to and never reach their members.

I haven't figured out if the ACP office is just that understaffed, that incompetent, or that uncaring... and since I couldn't make it to the last AGM (but I did send a proxy!) due to previous scheduling, I am already making sure that I don't schedule anything for this year so I can attend.

Mastabattas, you are right - there is too much apathy among our ranks.... but some of that, I suspect, comes from apathy from ACP. When you try to contact them with legitimate questions, when you call and leave messages, when you email and don't get a response, lots of people are willing to give up, rather than be like the select few who become more vocal.

Personally, I disagree with the fee increase as I cannot see where we are going to get increased benefit for the increase. I agree with tniuqs in that our fees are not comparable with other medical annual fees. I have figured out the profits from running a single weekend EMR exam session, and it is significant. Multiply that by the number of exam sessions, and add our annual fees to that, and although ACP makes a lot of money off us, we don't seem to be getting a good return on our investment.

Hope to see everyone at the AGM.