Whitehorse Daily Star

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PLEASED WITH RESULT – Alex Mackay said he was impressed with the ease and speed of the Find a Family Doctor program, which luckily matched him with a physician a week after he applied.

YG program is aptly filling the prescription, statistics reveal

Nearly 250 people have been matched with a family physician through the Yukon government’s Find a Family Doctor program.

By Gabrielle Plonka on February 21, 2020

Nearly 250 people have been matched with a family physician through the Yukon government’s Find a Family Doctor program.

The program has received 854 applicants since it launched on Nov. 13, 2019.

There are still 608 people waiting to be matched with a physician. There are currently 17 physicians taking new patients through the program.

Applicants are randomly assigned to a doctor in a weekly lottery, according to how many openings are available that week.

The Yukon government plans to make 64 matches in the month of February, according to Marguerite Fenske, director of Insured Health.

Fenske told the Star Feb. 11 that applicants are being matched via the lottery system to ensure there is no favouritism.

It means that applicants who applied late, due to barriers like Internet access, won’t be penalized. No personal medical information is taken into account when matching doctors with patients.

This means, however, that patients who urgently require a doctor are not prioritized through the Find a Family Doctor program.

Patients who need a doctor immediately can be referred to one through Whitehorse General Hospital, rather than waiting on the lottery system, Fenske said.

Fenske said she’s confident every applicant will be matched with a doctor.

“I wouldn’t have said that at the beginning – but I’m more optimistic now,” Fenske said.

She said 386 people registered for the program in the first two weeks of its launch, while the department was still working to bring doctors on board with the program.

“It was a huge spike in the first little while, so we were really worried about getting the doctors on.”

Fenske is hopeful the number of physicians taking patients will continue to grow. She said the Yukon Medical Association is encouraging all physicians in the territory to enlist.

Doctors are provided with a fee code for every new patient, Fenske said, as an added incentive to register with the program.

She said, however, that many doctors are aware of the need for patients to be matched with doctors and that is an incentive on its own.

Physicians are required to take on a minimum of 25 patients per year, though Fenske said some physicians have agreed to take on more than the minimum.

With 17 doctors taking on 25 patients, the minimum number of applicants who can be matched this year is 425 – about half of the applicants.

Fenske is hopeful that more doctors will register for the program, and more will start working in the territory, to boost that number and ensure nobody has to wait more than a year for a match.

The program is only currently available to people living in Whitehorse or the outlying communities.

Alex Mackay is a Whitehorse resident who said he was impressed with the speedy process of matching with a doctor.

Mackay, 41, said he registered for the program in November, and was matched after about a week.

“I’m pretty excited about it, honestly,” Mackay said. “Getting a little older, I wanted to at least have the option to see a regular person.”

Mackay said he advocated for a program like Find a Doctor over the last election. He had made calls to doctor’s offices and “heard a lot of ‘no’s,” and realized there wasn’t doctor accessibility in the territory.

“I’m happy to see some kind of action taken, because I know I wasn’t the only one in that situation,” Mackay said.

“Having it will probably improve the health outcomes for a lot of people.”

Mackay said he found the application process to be straightforward, and didn’t require a lot of personal information.

He was informed he’d been matched via a letter in the mail. He was instructed by the letter to reach out to his new family doctor in order to make an appointment.

Mackay said he had the option of not proceeding with the doctor matched to him, if he felt it wasn’t a good fit after his first visit.

Fenske told the Star her department has received positive feedback since the program’s launch.

“Most people are saying it’s an easy app to use, it’s not that confusing,” Fenske said.

Whitehorse residents are invited to register for the program through the Yukon government’s website. Insured Health Services is able to lend assistance enrolling, and can be contacted at 867-667-5209 or toll-free at 1-800-661-0408.

Comments (6)

Up 4 Down 1

At yukon max on Feb 27, 2020 at 11:27 am

You choose to live in a community, deal with it. Or, attract a physician to come live in one.

Up 6 Down 10

missing information on Feb 24, 2020 at 1:25 pm

How much extra are doctors getting paid to take patients off of this list rather than people searching on their own? Doctors never do anything for free.

Up 7 Down 12

YukonMax on Feb 24, 2020 at 7:59 am

Wow, Whitehorse residents get assistance in pairing with a FAMILY doctor.
In 2020...
I guess the communities are on their own for many, many more years.
Here you get the visiting doctor, whoever he or she is, and no, the 15 minutes max doesn't afford them to go over your files and won't give you time to get your blood pressure low enough to explain your pains. So at the end of the day, we in the communities only visit the local health center for EMERGENCIES.
We live with our pain 24/7 and hope something will burst as to point to the doctors where the problem was all along.

Up 8 Down 4

Simon on Feb 23, 2020 at 10:13 pm

Good on YG for making more online services and more importantly "good" online services that are easy to use. We need many more of these.

Up 11 Down 6

Juniper Jackson on Feb 23, 2020 at 11:21 am

Doctors are people like anyone else.. we have some excellent doctors here.. they are the apex of health care expectations. Then we have that doctor, everyone is a junkie..we have that doctor, your 15 minutes is up, get out... I got a Doctor, that I was totally incompatible with,I didn't trust him/her.. but, that person might have been someone elses saviour..but sure wasn't mine. So, what do you do? Actually, you are stuck. People go back to emerge rather than see someone they don't like. I got lucky. OMG, I am grateful every single day for Adrienne. I was grateful every day for Sally. It used to be that doctors had their hearts in the right place, for many now, it's about the money. I am also grateful for the nursing staff that put up with so much crap, they had to post signs saying, Abuse won't be tolerated. Someone tell me.. IF you get paired up with someone that is not suitable to you, how do you change that? Yeah, I did it.. but I had help. There should be an easy process, to be able to say, personality conflict. I don't want to write the Medical Association because we didn't get along..Doctors should be able to trade clients. They don't like everyone either. I am surprised we don't have more doctors in the Yukon.. they are very well compensated, liberal working hours.. and I like that. I want my doctor to have a life outside, pain, illness, crap, and blood.. it helps her to be well balanced. If someone knows how to change doctors, please post.

Up 19 Down 0

30+ year resident on Feb 21, 2020 at 4:32 pm

I registered the first day of the program. Still don’t have a doctor. Haven’t had one since Tony retired.
Why is this?

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