Clinic Policies

Before anything else

We are a referral-based consultative internal medicine clinic. Your family physician or nurse practitioner refers you; we assess you, and we report back to them. Consultations are insured by OHIP — there is no charge to referred patients for the medical care we provide.

We do not provide urgent or after-hours care, and this website is not monitored for medical questions. If this is an emergency, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency department.

1. Getting your appointment booked

Once we receive your referral, our staff will try to reach you up to three times, using the method you prefer — phone, email or mail. We try at different times and on different days to improve the odds of catching you.

Your appointment is confirmed only once you reply. Please respond promptly, even if only to say a time does not work.

If we cannot reach you after three attempts, and we have not heard from you within 24 hours of our last attempt, we will close your referral. Your referring clinician can send a new referral whenever you are ready, and you go through the normal process again.

2. Reminders

Once your appointment is confirmed we will try to remind you 24 hours beforehand, depending on how much time there is between the referral and the appointment.

Reminders carry any special instructions — fasting, bringing a list of your medications, and so on. It is worth reading them.

4. When we would stop seeing you

We would rather never use this section, and in practice we rarely do. But you are entitled to know where the line is.

A physician may end the relationship with a patient where trust has broken down. Reasons include, but are not limited to:

• refusing to pay for uninsured services
• misuse or abuse of medication
• repeatedly arriving late or missing appointments
• declining to follow up when your treatment needs it
• rude or abusive language or behaviour toward our staff or other patients

We will tell your referring clinician and give them what they need to keep looking after you. You are not left without care.

You can be re-referred afterwards through the normal process. We may decline a re-referral depending on the circumstances of the discharge.

5. Behaviour and safety

Everyone here — patients and staff — is entitled to a safe and respectful environment.

Abusive or threatening behaviour toward staff or other patients ends the relationship immediately. We ask that you follow clinic policies and any reasonable safety instruction you are given.

6. Your information

Your health information is protected and handled under Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA) and this clinic’s own policies.

Read our Privacy Statement — it covers what we collect, who sees it, where it is kept, how long we keep it, and your right to see and correct it. If you have a question about your information, ask any of our staff or contact our Privacy Officer.

7. Email, text and telephone

We use electronic communication because it makes reaching you quicker and easier. Ordinary email and text are not secure, so as a rule we do not send medical information that way — but if you ask us to, we will, after reminding you of the risk once. That is your decision to make about your own information, and you can change your mind at any time.

Please do not send us health information by email, and never use email for anything urgent.

Before we communicate with you electronically we ask you to sign a consent form covering the risks in full. Read what it covers.

8. Questions, and things you are unhappy about

If anything here is unclear, ask us — our staff would rather explain it now than have you find out at a bad moment.

If we have got something wrong, tell us. Most things we can put right quickly. You can also raise a concern about a physician with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, or a concern about your health information with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, at any time. You do not have to come to us first.