IMPORTANT UPDATES

Family Doctors transitioning to a Family Health Organization

Dr. Haleh Doulatyariazar, Dr. Alireza Oliaei and Dr. Saloomeh Oudji

Our family doctors have formed a Family Health Organization (FHO). This means better care for patients who have enrolled with one of our family doctors.

Benefits and Commitments of being a FHO-enrolled patient:

• You have a family doctor who will coordinate your care. 
• You have access to the team of FHO doctors for urgent, same day concerns either in-person or virtually. If you need a same day urgent appointment, please call us at: 647-992-9277 or email us at info@azarmed.ca and leave your name and phone number and a brief message before 4:30 pm from Mondays to Fridays. We are closed on Sundays. (clink Patient Information for examples of urgent vs non urgent appointments.
• We offer convenient after-hours call services. From 5 pm to 9 am the next day, Monday to Friday, and 24/7 on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. Please call 1-800-553-7205. 
• You agree and commit to try your best to see your family doctor for regular care, and you agree not to go to another walk-in clinic to see a different family doctor. You may come off your family doctor’s roster in this case.
• Please do not drop by the clinic without an appointment and expect to see your designated family doctor. You need to make an appointment ahead of time if you want to see your family doctor. For urgent same-day matters, we may have to assign you to another doctor who is on-call to help you.

Periodically, we receive a list from the Ministry of Health of our registered patients who have used the services of other family physicians or general practitioners (GPs). Each time any of our patient visits another primary care provider (e.g; Walk-in clinic, or another family doctor), our clinic is billed by the ministry. That does not include emergency room visits, pharmacist visits or specialists visits.

The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care sees FHOs as a cost effective way to provide quality health care in Ontario. Please do not access primary care from other walk-in clinics as this reduces the quality of your health care. Other walk-in clinics rarely send records to your doctor after your visit. This leads to a duplication of services performed as often patients need to see their primary family doctor for the same medical problem.

Furthermore, many patients may not know that under our agreement with the Ministry, our fees are deducted for visits by patients to family doctors outside of our FHO.