Can a buyer take over a medical practice's OHIP billing number, or do they need their own?

An OHIP billing number is tied to the individual physician who holds it, not to the practice, the clinic space, or the corporation operating it. A buyer who is a licensed physician cannot simply "take over" the seller's billing number as if it were an asset changing hands; they need to be enrolled and credentialed in their own right before they can bill OHIP for services they provide.

What can transfer is the practice's infrastructure and administration: the clinic space, equipment, staff, patient base, and often the corporate entity itself in a share sale. But billing continuity for the incoming physician still depends on their own registration being in place, ideally before they start seeing patients under the new ownership, since a gap here can mean unbilled or delayed-billed services during the transition.

This is a timing issue as much as a legal one: buyers should confirm their own billing setup well ahead of closing rather than assuming it happens automatically alongside the sale, and purchase agreements for medical practices often build in a transition period or shared-practice arrangement to bridge any gap. Getting this sequencing wrong can create real cash-flow disruption right when a new owner can least afford it.