The clinic we use in Ontario probably for tired of registered patients going to other doctors, but we had no choice. We couldn’t get appointments with our doctor for weeks if not months. They started displaying posters warning us against going to other clinics but I don’t recall there being any of getting struck off the list as a result.
The clinic started offering walk in appointments on Saturday mornings for registered patients as well as evening appointments for more urgent, non emergencies.
Now they’re slow starting to charge for more and more small things that used to be covered by OHIP.
I’m glad I moved to BC. You can see your doc, if they think they will be busy on the day you need to get a result checked or follow up test they have even suggested going to another clinic. They all share the medical database to send details to other docs, and lab results are online. I have not come across this aggression to patients getting service elswhere that the primary place could not provide
Good question! I suppose you could ask for another referral to a different surgeon for a second opinion but I’ve no idea if you’d get an appointment. Note that it’s usually months from getting the referral to getting the appointment.
I think the chances of getting a second opinion from another doctor are ZERO for the reasons stated in the article.
The other is an enrollment system, in which doctors are paid per patient, regardless of how many times they see them. However, under the enrolment or rostered system, every time that patient seeks care elsewhere, the family physician is deducted part of the available funding. “It ranges anywhere from 50 to 100 per cent,” Toronto Dr. Fred Freedman told CTV News Toronto.
Burn out? Tired of BS? No viable therapeutic relationship?
Each time the patient sees a different doctor it hurts the family doctor financially, that is why they are “firing” patients. Nothing to do with any other factor, just financial.
If patients see other doctors often enough (6 times in a year), or for things that get billed at a higher rate than a check-up (aka, basically everything), the family doctor will need to pay out more than the government paid them in the first place.
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