Not Rostering Patients
Summary:
- The Community Care Clinic is designed to provide temporary and episodic care focused on a presenting concern.
- Do not expect an ongoing care relationship with any one physician. Sharing your full history at each visit will often be necessary.
- You will be seen by the physician currently available.
The Community Care Clinic exists to provide temporary family medicine services to anyone who requires it and is intended to be a shared practice. If you continue to access services here, you will eventually meet several physicians who work on rotation taking turns providing coverage. This strategy ensures continuity and accessibility. Your file, records, and results will be maintained at the clinic regardless of which physician you see ensuring that you can access both quality and timely care.
Unlike a traditional family doctor, the Community Care Clinic does not roster patients. Likewise, it does not turn any patients away. You and your family are welcome to access the clinic’s services regularly but please be aware that no one physician will be providing your care.
Services Not Provided
Summary:
The clinic cannot provide continuity. Therefore, our doctors do not provide the following services:
- Chronic pain management
- Long term disability paperwork
- Legal opinions / assessments
- Adult ADHD management
It is the Community Care Clinic’s policy NOT to prescribe chronic pain, benzodiazepine, ADHD, or sleeping medication to patients who register as walk-ins. Patient’s requiring these medications must make a booked appointment to discuss their specific needs in depth. Physicians are not required to justify prescription refusals.
Other circumstances that require a longitudinal care relationship are long term disability management and legal proceedings. With respect to legal proceedings specifically, your best interests are served by seeing only one physician as much as possible. Inconsistencies in the chart, which are inevitable when multiple doctors see you, will be detrimental to any legal proceedings you have initiated.
Your Responsibility to Follow Up and Results
Summary:
- You are responsible for remembering follow-up if you are informed you need repeat blood work, imaging, routine screening, or other — you will not be reminded.
- You can request all results printed free of charge at the front desk.
- If you are called back to discuss results, do not stack the visit with other concerns—this is dangerous.
Because the Community Care Clinic is a shared practice, your results are often interpreted by a different physician from the one who ordered the investigation. Although the Community Care Clinic strives to ensure nothing gets missed, you should always follow up your results regardless of if you are called back or not—no system is perfect. For example, many concerns persist even when results are “normal” and no callback is issued. The Community Care Clinic is here for you until such time as your health concern is resolved.
To encourage follow up, the Community Care Clinic is pleased to provide free copies of results to patients. Please inquire at the reception. So long as you request only the results from a single date, and a Community Care Clinic doctor is the ordering physician, there will be no printing charge. If the result was not ordered by a Community Care Clinic physician, the result will not be printed free or otherwise–you must find the appropriate custodian of the information and request the same from them.
Results will only be released in person and cannot be emailed.
Patients Who Travel or Are Traveling
Summary:
- Phone consults cannot be requested by patients.
- If you need information faxed, you must coordinate with a local care provider who can receive that fax.
The Community Care Clinic is only able to provide patient care directly through in person visits at the clinic and occasionally phone consults. Community Care Clinic physicians will not return phone calls to patients. If you would like to speak to a physician, you MUST be present in person at the clinic or have a callback issued that invites you to book a phone consult. Patients cannot request phone consults.
If you are traveling and are unable to be present in-person, it is your responsibility to coordinated with a local primary care service provider wherever you are. In order to access your chart, work with your chosen local primary care provider to sign a Release of Information and fax it to the Community Care Clinic at 780-715-1700. This Release of Information MUST have your signature on it. If the local primary care provider does not have a standard letter head for this purpose, a template is available here: <<Release of Information PDF Template>>.
If you require the information urgently, you must call an coordinate with Community Care Clinic staff during the Community Care Clinic’s regular business hours.
Please Note:
- You must provide a description of the information you want accessed / released. Please be as specific as possible. A fee may apply if you request multiple results from multiple service dates or the entire chart.
- If you are requesting access to another individual’s information you must either: i) be that individual’s Authorized Representative, or ii) attach a valid consent executed by that individual.
- If this is your consent and you are requesting the release of your personal information to an authorized representative, please include a photocopy of your license with your signature clearly visible.
Collection of Personal Health Information, E-Mail and Printing
Summary:
- The clinic will not communicate by email except in emergencies.
- The clinic will not print electronic forms from USB sticks, email attachments or other media.
The Community Care Clinic Ltd. collects personal health information according to the provisions and restrictions of the Health Information Act of Alberta, Section 20.
Please note, it is a contravention of the Health Information Act of Alberta to discuss or disclose personal health information using non-secured methods such as e-mail.
Secondary to electronic security risks, the clinic staff are prohibited from opening email attachments and / or accepting digital media (e.g., USB sticks) for use int eh clinic an with clinic computers. Therefore you are required to print all necessary forms prior to coming to the clinic.
Private Pay / Uninsured Services
Summary:
- The clinic charges uninsured service fees as per the AMA suggestions.
Not all medical services are covered by the government. Therefore, the Community Care Clinic charges service fees as per the AMA private billing guide. Our service fees can be seen here.
An Open Letter
Dear Patients,
When I designed this clinic, I intended it to fill the gap between walk-in only and a traditional family practice: a place where the myriad of transitioning workers in Fort McMurray could access quality and timely care without committing to live here permanently or getting an Alberta health number. Since our inception in 2017, we have helped thousands without forcing them to choose between a bare minimum visit and the search for a traditional family doctor.
Without question, Fort McMurray is a wonderful place to practice general medicine: the need is great; the patient population stoic and hardworking; and the community is welcoming, friendly, and diverse. But this is a city constantly on the move with workers and their families coming and going. The clinic’s patient population is always in flux and so are we, the clinic’s physicians, who have thus far numbered 15 and counting.
That you cannot be rostered by single physician who gets to know you is not ideal for patients or physicians. Still, for many, our model is the perfect fit: a convenient and effective way to access timely family medicine services beyond the absolute basics. If you are a patient affected by the above policies, I hope you will understand that these limitations are what allow us to fulfill our mission.
Thank you for your continued support. With no patients, there is no clinic.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ravi