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The B.C. government will pay $7.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit launched 18 years ago on behalf of doctors who treated certain patients but were never paid by the government.

The settlement, reached after mediation, is subject to court approval. It is a far cry from the $100 million that doctors initially imagined when the action began. The $7.5 million will be reduced by about 30 per cent by legal fees and expenses to class action lawyers for the plaintiffs, including Vancouver lawyer Arthur Grant.

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Grant said in an interview he expects up to 7,000 doctors could be eligible to share in the proceeds.

The biggest chunk of physicians expected to collect settlement funds are emergency room doctors and plastic surgeons who treated patients at hospitals but were not compensated because those patients were delinquent in paying their Medical Services Plan premiums.

In the early 1990s, the NDP government cancelled health insurance coverage when patients failed to pay their premiums and denied payment to doctors when they treated patients anyway.