Clinic Policy

Welcome to our clinic in Thornhill!

Our receptionist is Luba Yanko. She answers the phone and arranges appointments. Things can get busy, so please have some patience; she usually gets to you as soon as she can. Please check in with her when you come in.

A lab technician is Ausrine Vajegiene. She works on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 8.30am to 5.30pm, and on Thursdays from 1.30pm to 7.30pm. She can draw blood, perform allergy tests, injections (including immunizations and allergy shots), urinalyses, urinary pregnancy tests, take blood pressure, check pulse, do pulmonary function tests, electrocardiograms, and assist with physiotherapy procedures: laser, microcurrent and ultrasound.

Health Cards

All patients MUST show their health cards every visit. Patients with invalid or expired health cards must pay for their services in advance.

Visits

There are different reasons for the visits. They can be:

• a regular visit, where you would like to discuss one big or two small problems
• a short visit – for prescriptions renewal or for a small straightforward problem, or
• long visits, such as routine complete yearly physical examinations, pre-op assessments, minor surgical procedures, consults, counseling for common somatic disorders (up to 3 per year), psychological counseling or primary mental care.

Please indicate the type of the visit when you book an appointment. This will be very helpful for the appropriate time scheduling and will certainly help avoiding long waiting time to see the doctor. Sometimes we have an unscheduled emergency, and we ask for your patience if this does happen.

Complete physicals are usually booked for half an hour. If blood tests are to be done, we ask you to fast for at least 12 hours: no breakfast, only water is fine, and you may take your medications (except diabetes medications).

Returning phone calls

It is sometimes difficult to return a phone call during a busy day. We often return the calls during lunch
time or after office hours. Dr Wilderman is not available for telephone advice.

Prescription Policy

It is the official policy of our Clinic that we will not be renewing any prescriptions over the telephone or fax. For our patients' conveniences, extra refills of prescriptions may be given at the time of the original prescription at the individual doctor's discretion. Thus, when all your refills are used up, do not call for more refills. Please come in for a reassessment and follow up of your medical condition. Long term use of medications without proper medical supervision can lead to unnecessary side effects from the medication or missed diagnoses.

Missed appointments

Cancellation fee for missed or cancelled less than in 24 hours appointment is $30 for a regular visit and $60 for complete physical examination, counselling or consultation.

Services not insured by OHIP

There are some services we provide which may not be covered by OHIP, and for which you are therefore responsible for payment. Payment is due at the time the service is completed. Such services include the completion of sick notes, insurance forms, travel medicine counseling, cosmetic procedures of the skin, and third party requests for physical examinations (i.e.: work, camp, driver’s license, etc.). In some cases both the forms and associated physical exam are uninsured. The fee will depend on what service is provided and the amount of time necessary to complete it. Some of the more common services and fees can be found on this page. We follow the Ontario Medical Association Schedule of Fees in setting our uninsured rates. Please feel free to discuss these with your doctor if you have any concerns about your ability to pay.

Please note that fees for forms do not include the cost of the associated medical examination, if any is required.

Referrals to Specialists

You will be referred to a specialist if a their opinion, procedure or operation is needed. We write a referral letter and send a copy of the appropriate tests to the specialist. Then either we or the specialist office will contact you with the appointment date. It is patient responsibility to keep or change the appointment thereafter. We do not encourage multiple specialist consultations because this makes it very difficult to coordinate your health care. We generally do not refer for problems that should be followed by a family doctor, for example: routine pap smears, annual breast exams, etc.