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This article was published 2/11/2010 (3620 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dr. Anil Sud works at the Point Douglas Community Clinic.

A small number of family doctors at Main Street medical clinics earned upwards of $500,000 last year -- more than the average cardiologist and vascular surgeon.

According to Manitoba Health's public compensation disclosure report, released in October, a handful of physicians who practise on the strip of walk-in clinics in Point Douglas banked nearly twice as much as the average family doctor, and one Main Street physician took home three times what his colleagues earn.

Dr. Anil Sud billed the province for $821,085 -- a fee that puts him in the same category as highly specialized internists, ophthalmologists and plastic surgeons. The year before, Sud billed the province $755,900, and in 2007-08, he billed $691,787.

Last year, Dr. Anton Kloppers earned $528,243, Dr. Derrek Jensen took home $483,661 and Dr. Randy Allan banked $447,860.

Dr. Randy Allan practised at Main Street Medical Centre.

Allan has not practised at the Main Street Medical Centre since June, and medical sources say he is under investigation by Manitoba's physician regulatory body.

Manitoba's physician regulatory body has declined to elaborate on why Allan is no longer practising. Jensen practises at the Main Street Medical Centre.

The Manitoba College of Family Physicians and Doctors Manitoba declined to comment on whether these billings are unusual, or why they are higher than billings of the average doctor and other Main Street physicians.

Kloppers defended the billings, saying physicians such as he and Sud work long hours, seven days a week.

He said he and a handful of other core-area physicians work after hours, on weekends and do house calls. Kloppers, who works at Four Rivers on Main, said most of his patients are aboriginal and he and other area doctors tend to a high-needs population that others won't.

Dr. Anton Kloppers is at the Four Rivers Medical Clinic.

"The (patient) volume is high, and I think it's (our) availability," he said. "Sometimes I do 10 house calls, 15 house calls. It depends. I think we work hard."

Sud declined to speak with the Free Press. But Kloppers noted Sud works nearly around the clock. "That guy works until 10 p.m., every day. Even on Sundays."

Dr. Gerald Hoy, a family physician who billed the province $228,201 last year, has a different perspective on the issue.

"These guys are making more than some surgeons," said Hoy.

Hoy believes prescription drug abuse is a large problem on Main Street. His own Main Street practice has taken on more than 200 opiate addicts in the last 18 months.

Most of the province's doctors bill Manitoba Health for every service they provide to a patient -- whether it's for orthopedic surgery or to remove earwax. Only a handful of doctors at community clinics are paid a salary. A portion of the billing fees goes toward paying overhead costs, for supplies such as needles and gloves and the lab or clinic space where the physician works. The rest of the money goes directly to the physician.

Manitoba Health has the ability to audit physicians' billings but did not respond to repeated calls and emails from the Free Press this week as well as last week to answer questions for this story.

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca