The Future of Primary Care: What we are hearing from members

Doctors of BC thanks the physicians who have participated in the engagement on primary care. Your commitment, passion, and clarity in presenting your proposed solutions are inspiring, and your feedback will be used to help us develop tangible, concrete solutions in our discussions with government as we together develop solutions to the crisis in primary care.

When we started this engagement, we committed to regular and open communications with our members. As part of that commitment, we are sharing with you the first What We Heard report that summarizes key themes from our first five sessions held June 22 to June 29, 2022.

We are continuing to collect member feedback through July 20 from an additional round of five virtual sessions including one for residents/new-to-practice physicians – and the online “Have Your Say” platform. We will share those inputs as well.

Some common themes from the first group of sessions are:

• Supports for infrastructure (overhead): The challenge of rising business costs has been a major theme. Most participants feel this is a ‘priority’ issue that must be addressed first and in a timely way.
• Improvements to payment models: Participants want to see new and improved payment models that address rising business costs, acknowledge time and cost of providing indirect patient care, and are simple and easy to access.
• Equity: Participants said it is critical that family physicians have payment equity with hospitalists, those working at UPCCs, and other environments.  
• Locum coverage: Participants said funding and support for locum coverage is a big priority so that they are able to take breaks when needed without worrying that their patients won’t have access to care.
• Physician burdens: Participants want greater support for and reduction of administrative requirements, updates and simplifications of fee codes, acknowledgement of impacts, and concerns around College guidelines and standards.

Other key themes included the need to improve access and support for use of EMRs, and to simplify and find solutions to physician recruitment. More on the key themes from the sessions can be found in our What We Heard Report.

What’s next?

We will be sharing another What We Heard summary report in the coming weeks to summarize themes from the second group of discussion sessions. At the conclusion of the engagement, we will conduct a deep-dive analysis of all member feedback from this engagement process, to help to determine priority actions for our organization and to move forward to government.