Abstract
Primary care has been ideally characterized as the medical home for all citizens, and yet recent data shows that approximately 6% do not have a family physician, and only 17.5% of family practices are open to new patients. Given acknowledged shortages of family physicians, this research asks the question: Do people with disabilities have particular difficulty finding a family physician? Health Care Connect (HCC) is a government-funded agency in Ontario Canada, designed to “help Ontarians who are without a family health care provider to find one”. Using data from HCC, supplemented by interviews with HCC staff, the study explores the average wait time for patients with disabilities to be linked with a primary care physician, and the challenges faced by agency staff in doing so. The study found that disabled registrants with the program are only slightly disadvantaged in terms of wait times to find a family physician, and success rates are ultimately comparable; however, agency staff report that there are a number of significant challenges associated with placing disabled patients.
Highlights
Primary care has been ideally characterized as the medical home for all citizens [1], and yet recent data shows that approximately 6% do not have a family physician, and only 17.5% of family practices are open to new patients
(a) We used a retrospective review of records of the Health Care Connect program, to assess the experience of Ontarians who have a disability seeking a primary care provider
If the vision of primary care as a “medical home” is to be achieved [1,4,44], there is still work to be done in ensuring appropriate care for people with disabilities
Summary
Primary care has been ideally characterized as the medical home for all citizens [1], and yet recent data shows that approximately 6% do not have a family physician, and only 17.5% of family practices are open to new patients. Research unequivocally shows that those most likely to be without primary care tend to be marginalized and disadvantaged subsets of the population [5,6]. This subset includes people with disabilities, and the more severe the disability, the less likely individuals are to receive comprehensive care [7,8,9,10]. Access to primary care includes the ability to find a family physician, to get an appointment, to enter and use the facilities of the practice, and to receive high quality care [11]
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