Author: Admin

Welcome to the second year in review from Find a Doctor BC.

We have put together statistics about what happened in 2022 with regard to family practitioners accepting new patients in BC.

Areas covered.

By May 2022 we had the entire province covered after adding all of Northern BC early in the year. We now monitor about 3,700 family practitioners in 798 clinics located in 138 towns and cities.

Results

From our data throughout the province, at end of 2022, there were 43 clinics who were accepting new patients, 22 who were accepting new patients in a limited way, 48 had a wait list and 685 were not accepting new patients and had no wait list.

Typically, there is only one family practitioner at a time in a clinic accepting new patients. This implies about 1 in 55 family practitioners were accepting new patients at the end of year.

During 2022 we detected a total 218 family practitioners accepting new patients at some point during the year.

At the end of 2022,

• 46 towns/cities had at least one clinic accepting new patients
• 38 towns/cities had no clinics accepting at the end of the year but had at least one clinic accepting new patients at some point in 2022
• 54 towns/cities did not have a single clinic accepting new patients during 2022.

Following is a list of BC towns and cities that have had at least one clinic…

Accepting new patients at the end of 2022	Not accepting now, but were at some point in 2022	Never accepting at anytime in 2022
Abbotsford	Beaverdell	100 Mile House
Agassiz	Cobble Hill	Aldergrove
Alert Bay	Comox	Armstrong
Bella Bella	Coquitlam	Ashcroft
Burnaby	Courtenay	Brentwood Bay
Burns Lake	Delta	Burnaby
Chetwynd	Enderby	Campbell River
Chilliwack	Grand Forks	Castlegar
Clearwater	Hazelton	Chase
Dawson Creek	Hope	Chemainus
Denman Island	Houston	Cranbrook
Duncan	Invermere	Crawford Bay
Fort Nelson	Kaslo	Creston
Fort St James	Logan Lake	Elkford
Fraser Lake	Maple Ridge	Fernie
Gitlax?t’aamiks	Mission	Fort McMurray
Gold River	New Westminster	Fruitvale
Hornby Island	Osoyoos	Gabriola
Hudson’s Hope	Parksville	Galiano
Kamloops	Pitt Meadows	Gibsons
Langley	Port Alberni	Greenwood
Lillooet	Port Coquitlam	Kelowna
Lumby	Port Moody	Keremeos
Mackenzie	Powell River	Kimberley
Masset	Prince George	Kitimat
North Vancouver	Qualicum Beach	Ladysmith
Pemberton	Revelstoke	Lake Country
Penticton	Richmond	Lake Cowichan
Port Alice	Salmon Arm	Lantzville
Port Hardy	Sechelt	Madeira Park
Port McNeill	Sooke	Mayne Island
Queen Charlotte	Squamish	Merritt
Quesnel	Vanderhoof	Mill Bay
Richmond	Vernon	Moberly Lake
Rossland	West Kelowna	Nakusp
Salmo	Williams Lake	Nanaimo
Stewart		Nelson
Surrey		New Denver
Tofino		Okanagan Falls
Tumbler Ridge		Oliver
Ucluelet		Pender Island
Valemount		Penticton
Vancouver		Prince Rupert
Victoria		Princeton
West Vancouver		Quathiaski Cove
White Rock		Saanichton
		Salt Spring Island
		Shawnigan Lake
		Sidney
		Smithers
		Sparwood
		Summerland
		Sun Peaks
		Terrace
		Trail
		Westbank

Note we only find clinics that are officially accepting new patients. If a doctor accepts a new patient via family and friends, we generally don’t hear about it. Our surveys show that about 1 in 7 patients find doctors through family and friends.

Search your town/city for clinics accepting new patients Search Now

Website Usage

Patients looking for care used the Findadoctorbc.ca website a lot last year, with over 340,000 unique users accessing 2.2 million pageviews over the year. Having concise clinic listings and up-to-date accepting status available has helped avoid millions of extra phone calls to clinics asking whether they are accepting new patients.

Notification Service

In addition to the website, we offer a notification service that will send you an email when a clinic in your region starts accepting new patients. From exit survey data (given to people who are leaving the service), of those who filled out the survey, 71% had found a family doctor or nurse practitioner. Of those, 87% found a medical doctor, 10% a nurse practitioner and 2% a team practice. We also asked how these people actually found doctors. 55% had found the practitioner through the notification service while 14% had found one through family and friends and 31% by other means.

You can be notified when clinics start accepting new patients in your area. Sign-up Now

A Final Word

It appears the BC Government’s recent actions are improving the situation. We have been able to report more family practitioners accepting new patients during the first month of 2023 as compared to the average month of 2022 and exit surveys in January 2023 showed 83% of those leaving the service had found a doctor.

Regards

Don and Ruth