Testimonials

"Very happy to support the Annual Continuity of Care program! Thanks for your commitment to your patients."
-S. from Victoria, BC

"I’m a new patient with the clinic and I just received the email about the ACCA. I find that’s a wonderful idea to help the continuity and access to doctors. Thank you. The Birch Buildings Clinic staff and doctors are really helpful, compassionate and professional
Thank you very much for all what you do"
-I. from Victoria, BC

What is ACCA?

In 2020, we started ACCA because I noticed many physicians in the community were retiring and leaving, resulting in many patients being abandoned. Therefore in 2020 at a clinic meeting, we did a poll to see how many physicians would be retiring in our clinic in the next 12 months, and half of the physicians' hands went up. Needless to say, this would have practically destroyed the viability of our clinic. To address the critical need, we instituted the Annual Continuity of Care Allowance (ACCA) with unanimous consent from staff and physicians to institute the program.

As a clinic, we are responsible to help our physicians maintain the Practice Standards as set out by the College, one of which is for all practicing physicians to have an actionable plan of continuity for their patients as listed in the following two Practice Standards: 1. 'Closing or Leaving a Medical Practice' 2. 'Primary Care Provision in Walk-in and Multi-Registrant Clinics' which as noted in recent CPSBC communications, emphasizes the responsibility of clinics to provide continuity of care for patients who rely on them as their primary source of medical care. Our ACCA program meets the above Standards to ensure all physicians in our clinic can practically meet these standards.

The program’s main goal is to recruit and retain physicians to our clinics to ensure continuity of your care into the foreseeable future. As an ACCA member you are next in line to be attached to another one of our doctors if your current doctor ever leaves, it does not provide any change to the level of care you receive when attached to a physician such as getting in quicker. The cost of having a physician in an environment where there is a serious shortage can be priceless, but we are trying to manage the cost while taking a grass-rooted and crowd-funding approach to the problem.

Although the government has recruitment programs that we are actively participating in, we only received three interested candidates in two years and none joined our clinic. So, we had to hire a professional non-government recruiter, who has helped us recruit nearly 20 physicians that have either already joined our clinic or have signed contracts and are in the process of joining our clinic in 2025. The recruitment fees to the recruiter per physician are close to $40,000.00, as it is expensive for him to travel to international recruitment fairs and pay for advertising in medical journals. He also must be available in all different time-zones as some physicians call him from Australia and others on the same day from the UK. So, you can see due to the nature of the need, the program is ongoing for it to function.

In BC, we are governed by what is called the Medicare Protection Act. I am providing a link here as we have studied the Act exhaustively: https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96286_01#section17
It is important to keep in mind some important details about our program in relation to how it is compliant with the Medicare Protection Act:

• ACCA is optional.
• ACCA is available to ANYONE in our clinics whether they pay or not as it is offered to those who declare financial duress.
• Section 17, subsection (2) of the Act states that, “subsection (1) does not apply: (b) if, at the time the service was rendered, the service was not considered by the commission to be a benefit.” Continuity of Care is mandated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons and is not listed as a MSP benefit, therefore it is not directly governed by the Act.
• ACCA is only available for existing patients of existing health providers, therefore service is never denied as the patient is already attached to a provider when a patient elects to be part of the program whether they pay or not.
• Payment of ACCA does not guarantee or provide attachment to a health provider. It helps fund the recruitment of future health providers to a clinic. For example, a patient may pay for ACCA but it will go to fund the recruitment of a health provider for another patient who did not pay ACCA. It is a community effort and the community as a whole benefits, whether a particular patient pays or not.

​ACCA is offered and managed by MyHealthco.ca, a separate, non-governmental primary care network. Annual Continuity of Care is offered as a longevity project to patients and their healthcare providers. Many patients are concerned about the continuity of their care and are worried about being powerless to help replace a care-provider that may retire, get sick, or move. They work to recruit healthcare providers and connect current patients with their future healthcare providers.

ACCA is optional and makes allowance for patients that may be experiencing financial strain. ​

go to myHealthco.ca

What patients are saying about ACCA:
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"Thank you … that is a GIFT with so many Greater Victoria/BC residents with no primary care/family doctor. The ACCA program is answered -prayer. Thanks for all you do" -D. Victoria, BC