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. 2022 Sep-Oct;20(5):460-463.
doi: 10.1370/afm.2865.

Family Physicians Stopping Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ontario, Canada

Tara Kiran  1   2   3   4 , Michael E Green  5   6   7 , C Fangyun Wu  3 , Alexander Kopp  3 , Lidija Latifovic  2   8 , Eliot Frymire  6   7 , Rahim Moineddin  9   3 , Richard H Glazier  9   2   3   4   8
Affiliations

Family Physicians Stopping Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ontario, Canada

Tara Kiran et al. Ann Fam Med. 2022 Sep-Oct.

Abstract

We conducted 2 analyses using administrative data to understand whether more family physicians in Ontario, Canada stopped working during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with previous years. First, we found 3.1% of physicians working in 2019 (n = 385/12,247) reported no billings in the first 6 months of the pandemic; compared with other family physicians, a higher portion were aged 75 years or older (13.0% vs 3.4%, P <0.001), had fee-for-service reimbursement (37.7% vs 24.9%, P <0.001), and had a panel size under 500 patients (40.0% vs 25.8%, P <0.001). Second, a fitted regression line found the absolute increase in the percentage of family physicians stopping work was 0.03% per year from 2010 to 2019 (P = 0.042) but 1.2% between 2019 to 2020 (P <0.001). More research is needed to understand the impact of physicians stopping work on primary care attachment and access to care.

Keywords: COVID-19; family physicians; health services, general practitioners; primary health care; workforce.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Number of family physicians per 1,000 who were actively practicing from January to March in a given year but who had 0 primary care visits between April and September of that year, 2010-2020. Observed numbers and fitted regression line with 95% CIs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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