Waiting for Healthcare Becoming a Big Problem in B.C., Data Confirms

A new report confirms that patients in British Columbia continued to face some of the longest average wait-times to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic across Canada in 2023.

On average, British Columbians had to wait 93 minutes to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic in 2023, according to data from Medimap.

That’s up 14 minutes from 2022 and sits well above the national average of 68 minutes.

Medimap, a health-tech company that matches patients with clinics and pharmacists, cites changes to BC’s physician payment model as one reason for the province’s slowdown in healthcare.

“BC has an unusual problem on its hands,” believes Thomas Jankowski, chief executive of Medimap. “Recent changes to the physician payment model have resulted in some walk-in clinics actually closing, exacerbating the very problem the change was trying to address.”

Wait times for BC have been rising steadily for years, Medimap’s Walk-in Clinic Wait Time Index shows—from 41 minutes in 2019 to 58 minutes in 2021, then 79 minutes in 2022.

Now at a staggering 93 minutes—over an hour-and-a-half!—BC’s average wait time is markedly longer than other provinces such as Ontario (59 minutes), Alberta (66 minutes), and Manitoba (45 minutes), even though these provinces have also experienced recent spikes in wait times.

Medimap’s mission is to make healthcare more convenient and accessible for Canadians, according to Jankowski, who says the digital platform is used by thousands of walk-in medical clinics, pharmacists, and allied health professionals across the country to publish wait times online.

“In a couple clicks, you can find up-to-date wait times at walk-in medical clinics near you and last minute appointments with a wide variety of different healthcare providers such as physiotherapists, chiropractors, optometrists, dieticians, mental health providers, naturopaths, and dentists,” the company states online.

Medimap is used by a majority of all walk-in medical clinics in Canada.

A version of this article was originally published on Techcouver.com.