Clinic Policies

All regular visits should be scheduled with your primary family doctor.

When booking an appointment, please identify the reason for your visit as accurately as possible. This allows the length of the appointment and the need for urgent availability to be triaged appropriately. Please also advise at the time of booking if you require a form or note to be completed, as this can affect the length of the visit, and will be associated with a fee.

If you have multiple health concerns, please identify all of them to the physician at the start of the visit, so that we can prioritize what needs to be addressed most urgently. It is generally most effective to thoroughly address and investigate one main issue per consultation rather than address several issues superficially. We can arrange further appointments to deal comprehensively with each of your concerns in turn.

If your child or family member requires an appointment as well, please advise our receptionist when booking. Each patient requires their own appointment to allow adequate time to address individual issues.

We book urgent appointments on a same-day and next-day basis. We have spaces set aside daily for urgent same-day and next-day appointments to ensure better access for you to medical care. If you have an acute illness, we will try to fit you into the schedule same- or next-day as best as possible.

If you have a medical emergency, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency department.

Our phones are answered Monday through Thursday, 8:30am to 12:00pm and 1:00pm to 4:00pm, and Fridays from 8:30am to 12:00pm. These times may change in the future; the updated times will be listed on our website and phone message.

Currently, our phone provider is only able to redirect your call to the main menu if all lines are in use. We understand this can be frustrating and apologize for the inconvenience. We are working with the provider on this important issue. 

Early mornings are the busiest times for the phones, so if you have a non-urgent issue, you may have a shorter wait time if you phone later in the day.

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We hope to introduce online booking soon - stay tuned!

Your family physician is a member of a group of physicians (a Family Health Group) who provide after-hours clinics for urgent issues on Monday to Thursday evenings from 5pm-8pm.

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To schedule an after-hours appointment, please call the office. We hope to also introduce online booking soon - stay tuned!

In order to access these after-hours clinics, you are required to have signed a Patient Enrolment form to be “rostered” to your family physician formally by the Ministry of Health.

For the best continuity of care, we ask that you first try to book in with your own physician during the day where possible before accessing the after-hours clinics.

A valid health card must be presented at every visit. If you do not have a valid health card, you will be billed for your appointment at the rates recommended for uninsured services by the Ontario Medical Association (OMA). It is your responsibility to ensure that your health card is valid prior to coming to your appointment.

Please arrive at least 10 minutes prior to your scheduled appointment time. This allows for you to be checked-in, and for any necessary exams (such as blood pressure check, height, weight, urine sample) and then seated in a room at your appointment start time.

If you are more than 5 minutes late for your appointment start time, then you will be re-booked for another day, and a missed appointment fee will apply. This policy ensures that we have adequate time to be thorough in your visit, as well as respect the time of our waiting patients. Late arrivals compromise your care, as well as the care of other patients in the practice. As such, recurrent late arrivals may result in dismissal from the practice.

We endeavour to be as on-time as possible, as we know your time is valuable. Due to the unpredictable nature of urgent visits, we may occasionally be running behind depending on the volume of fit-ins for the day, and appreciate your patience in these instances.

If you have multiple health concerns, please identify all of them to the physician at the start of the visit, so that we can prioritize what needs to be addressed most urgently. It is generally most effective to thoroughly address and investigate one main issue per consultation rather than address several issues superficially. We can arrange further appointments to deal comprehensively with each of your concerns in turn.

If you are requesting prescription renewals, please bring ALL prescriptions with you, not only the one you need renewed, as we will try to align your prescription refills as best as possible.

If you are over the age of 50, your family physician would like to see you once per year, in the month of your birthday, to review your chart and ensure your care is complete. If you are less than the age of 50 then your doctor will let you know how often you need to be seen for these check ins.

This periodic health visit is designed for the physician to renew and align your prescriptions and ensure your blood work and preventative health (pap tests, cancer screening tests, etc.) is up-to-date.

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Please bring ALL your prescriptions to this visit so they can be renewed.

Please do not expect any new issues to be addressed at this annual check-in.  It is intended to ensure your existing medical care is up-to-date and streamlined. If you do have new concerns, your physician can prioritize them to be addressed at future visits.

Our hope is that this will ensure your prescriptions, blood work and other monitoring do not fall by the wayside throughout the year, as well as allow any other visits you book to be dedicated fully to addressing your specific concern in detail.

You are asked to follow-up for medication renewals. Your physician will prescribe enough of your medication for you to get you to your next recommended appointment. Medications periodically require review and monitoring to ensure they remain safe and appropriate for you. Physicians will not respond to faxed renewal requests from your pharmacy.

If you are attending a visit for prescription renewals, please bring ALL prescriptions with you, not only the one you need renewed, as we will try to refill and align all of your prescriptions as best as possible.

Recent medical evidence now shows that medications that used to be prescribed routinely are more harmful than we once recognized. Prescribing these medications, in particular opioids / narcotics, benzodiazepines (eg. Ativan) and other prescription sleep aids, must be done carefully and thoughtfully. In keeping with current guidelines, your physician may wish to discuss decreasing the dose, discontinuing, or switching to a safer alternative if you are on one of these medications.

Other medications have always been known to have associated risks, including stimulant medications (eg. Ritalin). Prior to starting to prescribe a high risk medication like a stimulant or an opioid, your physician may require you to sign a contract outlining rules for safe usage and grounds for discontinuing the prescription.

If these prescribing patterns do not seem like a good fit for your needs, please identify this to your physician for discussion, and if needed, we can reconnect you with Health Care Connect.

Please provide a full working day notice to cancel an appointment (e.g., if you need to cancel an appointment for Monday at 9am, you must contact the office before 9am on Friday). Failure to do so will result in a charge based on OMA recommended rates.

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If you have granted permission for communication via email, you will receive a reminder email ahead of your appointment. The office does not give reminder calls for appointments.

Some medical procedures, and most forms and notes are not insured by OHIP and therefore are subject to a fee. The current costs for these uninsured services are posted in the office as well as on the clinic website; fees are determined at the suggestion of the Ontario Medical Association. Payments can be made in the office (debit, credit, and e-transfer are accepted).

If you have a form requiring completion, please identify this both when you book the appointment and when you arrive for check-in. Some forms are quite detailed and may require a dedicated visit to complete.

Please ensure your section of the form is completed prior to requesting the doctor to complete it.

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Please allow adequate time before your form is due to have it completed. Not all forms can be easily completed same-day in the course of a visit. Depending on the nature of the form, your physician may complete it outside of office hours and ask you to return to pick it up. Due to the large volume of paperwork, this may take up to 30 days, though we will endeavour to complete quickly where possible.

Westview Medical is a medical team comprised of physicians and administrative staff. It is expected that all members of the team will be treated with respect and courtesy. Aggressive, threatening or offensive behaviour towards any member of staff will not be tolerated and may result in termination of the patient- physician relationship.

On occasion, you may see a medical learner during your appointment, such as a medical student, who is a university student training to become a physician, or a resident physician, who is a licensed doctor training specifically in family medicine.

Any issues discussed with the learner are reviewed and overseen by your family physician. We appreciate that you want to see your physician, but also appreciate your participation in training the next generation of physicians. We endeavour to find a balance between including learners and seeing your own physician for continuity of care.