OBJECTIVES: The waiting time is used to assess the level of access to health services. Waiting times that exceed the medically reasonable time has consequences not only on the quality of services, but also leads to unnecessary costs. Financial incentives to institutions has been explored in several experiments and gave encouraging results concerning the evolution of wait times. It is in this context that our study falls. Indeed, we seek to measure the impact of financial incentives, especially activity based funding experience, on waiting times and length of stay for surgeries. METHODS: Our data sample consists of two groups:  treatment group (Quebec) and  control group (British Columbia). We use a Mixed Proportional Hazard (MPH) model with difference in difference approach to estimate the hazard to move from a waiting state to a surgery state and from impatient state to discharge state. RESULTS: We demonstrate that each additional 1M$ of funding decreased the waiting time by 9.8 days for knee replacements and 5 days for hip replacements. On the other hand, length of stay decreased by 1.14 and 1.18 days for knee and hip surgeries, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Surgery Access Program, analyzed in this text, has helped to reduce waiting time for knee and hip surgeries and also to decrease the length of stay for hospitalizations following these surgeries. The increase in surgical production encouraged hospitals to discharge patients more quickly, as long as this medical act does not decline the patient’s health by more than a critical level. The length of stay reflects a dimension of quality but can’t be considered as an outcome indicator. Improving waiting times and shortening lengths of stay while treating a larger volume, is certainly an improvement in the productivity of an hospital. However, we must ensure that this progress doesn’t lead to a deterioration of the quality of services.