Community Primary Care

Our team of primary care family physicians provide full scope family practice to our patients under a rural generalist model of care. On Salt Spring Island this means the same physician team provide clinic, hospital inpatient, emergency, residential and palliative care services within the community. We work together as a team and this enables us to provide cross-coverage for each other and to ensure patients of Saltspring Island Health Centre are able to see another physician within the clinic when their primary physician is away or otherwise unavailable.

We are pleased to offer Women’s Health services to all patients on Salt Spring Island regardless of whether or not their primary care provider is one of our physicians. These services are available by GP/NP referral or self-referral and include paps, IUD insertion and medical abortion.

We are pleased to be set up to offer minor procedure services within office.

Some medical office services, called uninsured services, are not covered by the Medical Services Plan of BC and must be paid for directly by the patient, regardless of whether they have BC Health insurance or not.  These fees may be covered under a patient’s private health insurance and the patient may be reimbursed for fees paid to the clinic.  Please check with your own insurance carrier.  The fees charged by the clinic for uninsured services are in compliance with the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA) guidelines, which are updated on an annual basis.

The uninsured services we provide are OSMV Driver’s Physicals and Employment, School, Camp forms. Fees for medical services that are not covered by the provincial insurance plan are the responsibility of you, the patient. The fees assigned are as per the recommendations of the provincial medical association. We realize and will always take into consideration that some patients may not be able to pay for these services. Please don’t hesitate to inform us if these fees place an undue financial burden on you.

Saltspring Island Health Centre is a UBC Department of Family Practice teaching site. This means we have both medical students and residents in the clinic throughout the year.  We hope that you will help us teach our next generations of physicians.

We understand that for certain issues you may prefer to not have a learner present.  If this is the case please notify one of our Medical Office Assistants when you arrive for your appointment.