Membership benefits

AOHC provides a wide range of services to its members.

Membership in the AOHC (Download the membership application form)


Our Vision
The best possible health and well-being for everyone living in Ontario.

• A future without systemic barriers that prevent people from reaching their full health potential, a future in which everyone can make the choices that allow them to live a fulfilling life.
• A future in which individuals, families and communities are served by, and are able to actively participate in, trusted healthcare systems that respond to people’s and communities’ needs in coordinated and comprehensive ways.
• A future in which people share responsibility with their health providers for their health and well-being.

Our Mission
As the voice of community-government primary health care in Ontario, AOHC works:

• To promote public policy that supports health and well-being, and that emphasizes health promotion and illness prevention through a strong focus on the social determinants of health.
• To advocate for eliminating systemic barriers to health and to champion health equity.
• To promote people- and community-centred innovations in the primary healthcare system that improve health and well-being and support healthcare sustainability.
• To support our member centres to continuously improve the quality and efficiency of their services and to advocate for the resources they need to deliver high-quality care.
• To advocate for the protection and improvement of medicare, ensuring that reforms to our publicly funded system focus on keeping people well and benefit everyone.

Our Members
AOHC has 3 types of members, all of whom are community-governed and not-for-profit:

1. Full members: Interprofessional primary healthcare organizations, including Community Health Centres, Aboriginal Health Access Centres, community Family Health Teams and community Nurse Practitioner-led Clinics.
   
2. Associate members: organizations that share the vision and value of AOHC. 
   
3. Emerging Group members: organizations or community groups that aspire to become a primary healthcare organization.

Members-driven Board of Directors
Our members also have an active role in steering the organization, through the AOHC Board of Directors.  The AOHC Board is made up of Board and staff representatives from member organizations.  In addition to three Members-at-Large elected by the entire membership, the AOHC has 13 Directors elected by their member constituency groups (which currently include 10 geographic constituencies, 1 Aboriginal constituency, 1 Francophone constituency and 1 CFHT constituency). The Board issues a semi-annual report to the Boards of our member Centres, and meets with these constituency groups twice per year in addition to the meeting of the full membership at the June Annual General Meeting. 

Member Benefits and Services
The AOHC works with and on behalf of the membership at the provincial level in the following areas:
Strategic leadership, communications and advocacy to government on issues related to

• The social determinants of health, health equity and social justice.  For example, AOHC participated in the Right to Health Care Coalition advocating for the elimination of the 3-month wait period, and led a pre-election campaign related to increasing access for 250,000 more Ontarians to community-governed primary health care services.
• Appropriate and equitable resourcing of community-governed primary healthcare organizations, on issues defined by the members.  For example, AOHC worked with the CHC sector to advocate to government for the transition of CHC physicians to full salary.  We are also working with our AHAC and CFHT members to negotiate with government improvements to funding and operations that are unique to each model.

Demonstrating the effectiveness of community-governed primary health care in improving health outcomes for Ontarians, through research and evidence collection and telling our story.

Helping member organizations build their internal capacity to adopt a culture of continuous quality improvement to improve the delivery of primary healthcare services, through educational and networking opportunities.

Leadership and support in the areas of ehealth and Information Management, including managing province-wide vendor contracts for interprofessional Electronic Medical Record systems;

Other benefits available exclusively to AOHC members are:

• Reduced rates at the annual AOHC conference;
• Low-cost, high-quality education and capacity-buildingopportunities for Boards and staff;
• Free postings at AOHC’s online Job Board;
• Access to AOHC’s low-cost, comprehensive Group Benefits package;
• A weekly e-bulletin that keeps members up-to-date on events and issues of relevance;
• General guidance to individual member organizations on operational and governance issues, as well as more detailed fee-for-service supportin areas of governance (such as strategic planning), community engagement and business & operational planning.

Group Insurance Program
The AOHC group insurance program offers Full and Associate members a full range of benefit plans, including life insurance, disability insurance, health and dental coverage and an employee assistance program.   

The program is managed by the AOHC Group Benefits Working Group, made up of your peers from across the province.  This group meets at least twice per year to review the financial status of the plan and to address any issues raised by a Centre, the insurance provider or our Consultants.    In addition to the management of the plan, regional meetings are held semi-annually, allowing your plan administrator, or you, to learn more about the programs available and to participate in group discussions and network with your peers.

The AOHC plan is not based on you as an individual employer, but on a buying group consisting of over 2,300 employees in over 72 locations and over $8M in premiums.  This allows for high non-evidence limits for both Life Insurance ($500,000) and Long Term Disability ($10,000).  This also means low administration charges for Extended Health (EHC) and Dental.  The administration fees, including stop-loss charge and consulting, are 13.17% for EHC and 10.96% for Dental.  Comparable plans for groups of 10-15 employees charge 21% to 24% or more in administration fees.  This means your organization will receive better value for the premium dollars paid.

The EHC and Dental plan is in a positive financial position.  As a result, if your group’s EHC and Dental experience is unfavourable, your renewal will be better than if you were in your own plan. 

The master contract is in the name of AOHC, and is reviewed on a regular basis.

Another advantage to the AOHC group plan is the Employee Assistance Program provided through Family Services (FSEAP), a not-for-profit organization.  The FSEAP benefit is available to plan members at a cost of $4.18 per month per member.  This rate is guaranteed until March 31, 2012.  One of the services available through FSEAP includes 24-hour telephone-based crisis counseling.  The regular range of counseling issues that can be dealt with include, for example, personal, substance abuse, work-related, marital and family problems.  Reports are provided by FSEAP on an annual basis.

Eligibility
In order to qualify for coverage through this program, your organization must be a Full or Associate member of the AOHC.
(Download the membership application form)

Questions about Membership in the AOHC?
For more details about AOHC membership, please contact Sophie Bart, AOHC Manager of Member Services, at (416) 236-2539 ext 244 or Sophie@aohc.org.