Two walk-in clinics close in downtown Vancouver
Sector seen losing doctors due to heavier workload, fee restrictions
Two walk-in medical clinics in downtown Vancouver are closing after more than a decade in business.
Stein Medical Clinics informed patients late last month that its location at 550 Burrard St. “will no longer be servicing MSP (Medical Service Plan) patients” as of March 21. Another location at 887 Dunsmuir Street has already closed its doors.
The Stein Medical Clinic at 777 Hornby will continue to offer userpay “executive health” services. It also has one family doctor accepting new patients.
A letter dated Dec. 21 advised current patients to find a new doctor by going to the website of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C.
Dr. Jeff Stein, who owns the clinics, declined to comment to Postmedia, saying through an assistant in an emailed response that “it was a private business decision.”
Mike McLouglin, founder of the Walk-In Clinics of B.C. Association, said a number of factors are influencing the sector, including a shortage of doctors because of the way they are paid.
Doctors in walk-in clinics typically can’t charge incentive fees available to family physicians for managing chronic illnesses or complex cases because more than one doctor may see an individual patient over the course of a year.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons, which regulates doctors in the province, released guidelines in 2015 requiring walk-in clinics to provide primary-care for their patients. That means keeping patient records, following up on results of tests they order and checking the province’s database of prescribed drugs, PharmaNet, to prevent abuse.
McLouglin said this gives walk-in clinics more responsibility without the benefit of incentives payments.
Doctors of B.C. — the professional association that negotiated the specialized payments with the provincial government — said they’re being applied correctly because the ideal situation is for patients to have a single doctor who knows them personally.
Statistics Canada stated that in 2013, 15 per cent of British Columbians over the age of 12 didn’t have a regular medical doctor. Applied to B.C.’s population today, that would total more than 600,000 people.
A joint effort by Doctors of B.C. and the provincial government over the past three years — called a GP for Me — has linked 178,000 patients with doctors.
Kelowna-based McLouglin, the business manager of MediKel Family Practise and Walk-In Clinic, said that despite changes in the locations of walk-in clinics throughout B.C., the overall number is relatively stable. His association lists 310 walk-in clinics in the province now compared to 300 five years ago. Most new growth is in stores like Walmart where doctors don’t have to worry about renting their own space.
The trend toward big-box store locations won’t help people who work downtown, he added.
“A lot of people live in the suburbs, but they work downtown and it’s much more convenient for them to be able to get health care downtown rather than change your schedule so you can see your family doctor back in the suburbs.”
A lot of people live in the suburbs, but they work downtown and it’s more convenient to get health care downtown.