New national data released during Red Tape Awareness Week confirms what family physicians already know from experience: excessive administrative workload in primary care is an urgent issue that requires immediate action.
The findings, published in a comprehensive Canadian Medical Association and Canadian Federation of Independent Business report titled Losing Doctors to Desk Work, show general practitioners spend 9.9 hours weekly on administrative tasks, compared to 8.6 hours for medical specialists and 8.4 hours for surgical specialists.
Considering that 59.6% of family physicians’ administrative time could be delegated to others, it’s of utmost concern that 85% of all physicians report having no administrative support whatsoever. This means the vast majority of family physicians are managing nearly 10 hours of weekly administrative work entirely on their own, much of it routine, repetitive, and potentially delegable.
Increasingly, clinicians are turning to workflow automation tools like Cortico to function as virtual administrative support. Not only can the current generation of digital health tools essentially provide a “digital MOA” to support struggling doctors. They can also lighten the load on existing MOAs and administrative staff to allow them to focus on higher-value activities.
Technology as Virtual Administrative Support
If technology can autonomously handle routine tasks like appointment scheduling, intake form processing, document routing, and patient reminders, then it stands to reason that workflow automation may provide the administrative capacity that’s otherwise missing for family physicians.
Family medicine clinics in Canada are already using digital health solutions to reduce administrative burden and run more sustainable practices. Case study data published by Cortico demonstrates that single-provider family medicine clinics implementing comprehensive workflow automation have achieved:
- 18 to 29 hours saved per week in combined physician and medical office assistant time
- Documentation error rates dropping from 15% to 0.3% through automated data population
- Approximately $800 per week in recovered billing from automated eligibility checks
- Near-zero no-show rates through automated reminder systems
Expanding MOA Capacity
For practices with existing MOA support, automation doesn’t replace staff—it multiplies their capacity.
Clinics utilizing automation tools often report achieving provider-to-support staff ratios as high as 4:1, as tasks like scheduling, payments, and appointment reminders move to an online self-serve process that patients handle independently. This approach allows clinics to scale without challenges around MOA recruitment becoming a bottleneck.
One six-physician practice was able to increase daily patient volume by 30% (to over 250 patients) through automating approximately 70% of routine administrative tasks. Crucially, existing MOAs at this clinic can now focus on higher-value work, like supporting vulnerable patients and assisting with more complex practice management tasks.
Scale Validates the Model
Across North America, clinics using Cortico’s workflow automation platform collectively facilitated over 3 million patient appointments in 2025, with more than 300,000 appointments managed monthly through online self-service channels. In addition, over 25,000 new patients complete digital intake and registration each month without staff intervention.
These numbers demonstrate that patient self-service through automation is a proven operational model being deployed at scale.
Common Tasks That Are Automated
High-quality healthcare workflow automation tools enable patients to book appointments, complete intake forms, upload documents, and manage prescriptions autonomously, 24/7, without telephone interaction with clinic staff.
This empowers patients to play a more active role in their care, while also freeing physicians and administrative teams to focus on complex care coordination, patient support, and clinical decision-making that genuinely requires human judgment.
The CMA survey confirms this approach aligns with physician priorities, as 67% rank delegating duties to non-physician staff as a high priority, and 72% rank eliminating unnecessary tasks entirely as a high priority. Automation addresses both by delegating routine transactional work to autonomous systems.
AI Documentation: Complementary Administrative Relief
While comprehensive workflow automation functions as virtual MOA support for practice operations, AI scribe technology addresses the clinical documentation burden specifically. According to the CMA report, physicians using AI scribes report saving an average of 64 minutes daily.
The Ontario AI Scribe Program administered by OMD helps clinics assess AI documentation tools and access implementation support. This reflects growing recognition that multiple technology layers (operational automation plus documentation support) are needed to meaningfully reduce the comprehensive administrative burden faced by family physicians.
Provincial Funding and Implementation Support Available
Provincial medical associations have established infrastructure specifically designed to help physicians implement workflow automation.
Doctors of BC’s Practice Support Program (PSP) provides facilitation, coaching, and funding for quality improvement projects focused on practice efficiency. The program offers direct support for workflow automation implementation, helping BC physicians access provincial digital health funding that now covers online scheduling platforms and other patient engagement tools for eligible clinics.
Alberta’s Physician Learning Program and Doctors Nova Scotia’s Practice Support team offer comparable services, reflecting a national trend toward supporting practice transformation through structured QI initiatives.
These programs provide the change management expertise, measurement frameworks, and often the funding that make adoption possible for real-world clinics. They help physicians move from “this sounds interesting” to “this is running in my practice and I’m measuring the results.”
Practical Pathways Forward
Here is some advice for family physicians ready to address administrative burden through digital health tools and workflow automation solutions:
- Start with measurement. Documenting where your time is spent on admin provides the baseline data needed to identify improvement opportunities and measure impact. Provincial QI programs often offer free or subsidized support for time-tracking studies and workflow audits.
- Explore funding options. Several funding streams may be available to offset implementation costs: Provincial digital health funding for online scheduling and patient engagement platforms (eligibility varies by province); QI program grants for workflow redesign projects; AI scribe evaluation and implementation funding in several jurisdictions; Practice innovation funds through provincial medical associations.
- Get implementation support. Rather than attempting technology adoption alone, family physicians may be able to access: PSP facilitators and practice coaches (BC); Physician Learning Program advisors (Alberta); Practice support teams in Nova Scotia and other provinces
- Partner with local providers. Clinics are often surprised at the hands-on support some software vendors provide to get up and running with their tools. For example, when you sign up with Cortico, our customer success staff and digital health consultants provide direct support with tasks like configuring appointment types for online booking, creating digital versions of forms, and identifying clinic workflows suitable for automation.
The Stakes Have Never Been Higher
The CMA report estimates that eliminating unnecessary administrative work could free capacity equivalent to 9,093 full-time physicians (about 9% of Canada’s active medical workforce). For individual physicians, this represents approximately 199 hours annually, or more than a full month of working time.
With more than half of physicians planning to reduce clinical hours and 25% considering leaving medicine or early retirement within two years due to administrative pressures, the window for intervention is narrowing.
For the 85% of physicians working without administrative support, technology that functions as virtual MOA capacity isn’t a luxury—it’s a practical necessity for sustainable practice. Provincial QI programs and funding mechanisms exist specifically to help physicians access these tools. Local Canadian healthcare technology brands, like Cortico, are also already making a meaningful impact in this space.
Ready to add virtual administrative capacity to your practice? Cortico’s workflow automation platform integrates with your EMR to automate booking, intake, reminders, document triage, and secure messaging. Book a demo to see how Cortico can help your practice reduce administrative burden and improve patient access.
