Essential information

DOWNLOAD LINK  >> The Richmond Family Physician Toolkit contains the following:
1. Essential Information
2. Career Supports + Resources
3. Clinic + Community Highlights

For settlement support and newcomer resources, visit About Richmond. For support, contact recruitment@rdfp.ca.

HealthMatch BC (HMBC) is a recruitment service for health care professionals funded by the province of British Columbia. If you see positions that interest you, reach out to our team at recruitment@rdfp.ca with details about yourself and about the positions (please cite the HMBC job numbers) for help to navigate the application process.

New-to-practice family physicians can choose between a Primary Care Network (PCN) New to Practice (NTP) Contract payment model, a Longitudinal Family Physician (LFP) payment model, or a Fee-for-Service (FFS) payment model. Each has its own advantages. 

PRIMARY CARE NETWORK (PCN) NEW TO PRACTICE (NTP) CONTRACT PAYMENT MODEL
Primary Care Network (PCN) New to Practice (NTP) contracts are based on hours worked for longitudinal family practice services provided in the clinic. It is designed for physicians who not already have an established patient panel, or who have a small-to-medium panel and still have room to attach more patients. The contract requires full-time family physicians (FPs) to provide a minimum of 1680 hours of service (to a maximum of 2100 hours) per year. Part-time agreements are also available. Year-end bonuses are available for FPs who complete ongoing QI activities. This payment model is ideal for individual FPs who are interested in income security while establishing their full-service family practice and building their own patient panel within a community group clinic that has integrated team-based care. Additional incentives are also available to NTP FPs as part of a wider strategy to ensure the sustainability of longitudinal practice.  

LONGITUDINAL FAMILY PHYSICIAN (LFP) PAYMENT MODEL
The LFP Payment Model is designed to support FPs who provide longitudinal family medicine care. It compensates for time, patient interactions, and the number and complexity of patients in the practice. It recognizes the complexity of longitudinal care, values the time spent with patients, identifies family medicine clinics as critical health care infrastructure, acknowledges the value of indirect care and clinical administrative services, and supports physician agency and flexility in pratice. This payment model is new to British Columbia and rolled out on Feb 1, 2023; the most up-to-date information can be found at the link provided above. 

FEE-FOR-SERVICE (FFS) PAYMENT MODEL
Under the Fee-for-Service compensation model, FPs are reimbursed for each patient visit or for service rendered to a patient, based on standard reimbursement rates defined under the Physician Master Agreement. This model can provide opportunities to achieve a higher income by increasing the number of services rendered. FFS care is characterized by more hours of direct patient care, increased patient visits, and the provision of more services such as diagnostic tests. 

Primary Care Network (PCN) New to Practice (NTP) contracts for family physicians are available.

New-to-Practice hours-based contracts are available for individual family physicians who do not have a patient panel or who have a small-to-medium panel and still have room to attach more patients, and who wish to join an existing group practice to build or fill a panel of attached patients for longitudinal care. The duration of this contract is two years. For more information, visit Doctors of BC, or email recruitment@rdfp.ca.

Once this contract is nearing completion, FPs can either apply for a PCN contract extension, join a group contract with at least two other full-service family physicians who have established patient panels, or transition into a fee-for-service (FFS) payment model.

Yes, family physicians who have a small-to-medium panel, and who still have room to attach more patients, are eligible for the contract provided they meet the other criteria outlined above.

Yes, part-time opportunities working a minimum 50 per cent (also known as 0.5 FTE) of a full-time contract are available. Payments for service contracts that are less than 100 per cent (1.0 FTE) are pro-rated.

Discuss your start date with your host clinic, leaving sufficient time for contract execution and licensure. Once you confirm that you are joining a clinic, the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) Contracts Team requires approximately four to six weeks to execute the contract and practice agreement. For new graduates, it takes additional time to obtain licensure and complete registration with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC.

You may commit to other opportunities provided that you meet all obligations under both the PCN service contract and your group Practice Agreement, including extended/after hours and on-call requirements. These other types of opportunities are outside the scope of both the contract and contracted panel commitments.

In this case, you may bill separately as fee-for-service (FFS) for services outside the scope of the contract, including:

• Services provided outside of the clinic.
• Services provided to third parties.
• Specialized services provided to referred patients who are not attached to the practice.
• GPSC networking fees and fees for the Long Term Care Initiative (LTCI).

Time spent for services outside the scope of the contract and billed under FFS cannot contribute to the PCN contract hours requirement.

Physicians may work at another clinic and bill as FFS while on the PCN contract. The PCN NTP contract does allow for telehealth visits (virtual care). While the contract does not limit the amount of allowed telehealth visits, the Ministry of Health may provide additional guidance on this topic.

Yes, providing practice coverage for other physicians can count toward your PCN contract hours. You may neither bill as fee-for-service (FFS) for these patients, nor attach these patients to your panel.

PCN physicians may only bill as fee-for-service (FFS) for services provided at a different clinic, whether patients are in-person or virtual.

Payments are made to the physician group. It is the responsibility of the physician group to determine how to allocate the payments among themselves. Physicians and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH, which is the local health authority) will determine whether payment will be made on a biweekly or monthly basis. Payments are made in equal installments throughout the year.

A special overhead incentive is  available of $75,000 per full-time equivalent NTP physician, for a period of three years, to reduce or replace your overhead contribution to your PCN Host Clinic.

As a physician under the PCN contract, you are required to contribute to the overhead costs of your clinic at the rate set out in the Practice Agreement. A special overhead incentive is  available of $75,000 per full-time equivalent NTP physician, for a period of three years, to reduce or replace your overhead contribution to your PCN Host Clinic.

The Longitudinal Family Physician (LFP) Payment Model was developed by the B.C. Ministry of Health in consultation with B.C. Family Doctors and Doctors of BC. An alternative to the fee-for-service model, the LFP payment model is a blended model to support physicians in family practice who provide longitudinal family medicine care. It was developed to:

• Recognize the complexity of longitudinal care
• Value the time spent with patients
• Resource family medicine clinics as critical health care infrastructure
• Acknowledge the value of indirect care and clinical administrative services
• Support physician agency and flexibility in practice

It supports family physicians by compensating for time, patient interactions, and the number and complexity of patients in their practice. On February 1, 2023, eligible family physicians in B.C. who registered for the LFP Payment Model started billing under the LFP Payment Model.

Learn More

Practice coverage arrangements may be a component of the agreement with your group practice, or you may be responsible for finding your own locum. The BC Family Doctors and Locums.ca provide online recruitment platforms to promote locum jobs. 

You may cover your own calls, you may participate in an after-hours call group arranged by your group practice, or you may join the Richmond Division After-Hours Call Group. For details contact recruitment@rdfp.ca

IMGs are Canadian citizens or permanent residents who have completed medical school outside of Canada or the United States. The program  provides IMGs with an opportunity to train and qualify as a practising physician in British Columbia.

Since 2006, the Province of British Columbia has funded the residency positions of hundreds of participants. In exchange, participants complete a Return of Service (ROS) following completion of their residency. Learn more.

DOWNLOAD LINK  >> The Richmond Family Physician Toolkit contains the following:
1. Essential Information
2. Career Supports + Resources
3. Clinic + Community Highlights

For settlement support and newcomer resources, visit About Richmond. For support, contact recruitment@rdfp.ca.

The British Columbia Physician Integration Program (BC-PIP) aims to support the successful transition of practice-eligible international medical graduates (IMGs) from the provisional registry to full licensure to practice medicine in British Columbia.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC (CPSBC) requires all provisionally licensed IMGs new to practice in BC to complete the program within eight months of the date they obtained their registration.

Topics include Billing in British Columbia, Safe Prescribing, the Landscape of Health Care in B.C. and in Canada, Introduction to WorkSafeBC and ICBC, Continuous Learning & Practice Improvement, and Practice Management.

Thanks for checking in! We are in the process of updating our information for PRA-BC IMGs. In the meantime, please contact the recruitment team at recruitment@rdfp.ca.

The EOI process, including host eligibility, terms, patient eligibility for PCN attachment, resources, and the step-by-step procedure, is laid out in the Call for Expressions of Interest document and in the RDFP PCN Host Application.

A Team-Based Care Grant provides $15,000 to eligible family practices that have onboarded interprofessional team (IPT) members. It is the latest step taken by the Family Practice Services Committee (FPSC) to support the growth of team-based care practices.  This grant helps to address the costs of recruiting and onboarding into a practice, which physicians have identified as a barrier to creating team-based care practices. 

An Overhead Incentive of $75,000 per year, for a period of three years, is provided to each full-time equivalent NTP physician to support their total overhead costs, to be paid directly from physician to host clinic. Overhead is a set percentage of the physician’s clinical or patient visit income as outlined in the existing practice agreement between a physician and their clinic. This incentive is designed to support host clinics in adding new physicians, and to significantly reduce or in some cases replace a physician’s overhead contribution to the host clinic.

SUPERVISION OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS (FPs)
A physician on a provisional licence will require supervision. The level of supervision is at the discretion of the supervisor and depends on supervisee competency. Supervision is meant to be high-level; not all patient interactions require observation. Supervisors do not need to sign off on patient charts or medications, but should review them as a component of regular reporting. No legal liability applies to a supervisor for their supervisees; any complaints against a supervisee bears no consequence for their supervisor.
Supervisor reports are required at the three-month mark and annually until the physician sits for examinations and/or obtains Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada (LMCC) and Certification in the College of Family Physicians (CCFP) designations to become fully licensed. A minimum of two reporting methods are required, such as chart reviews, chart discussions, direct patient–physician observation, 360-degree evaluation with other health professional colleagues, and other evaluation systems. Once the physician has met all other requirements and the first satisfactory report is received, the physician is eligible for full licensing. The maximum duration within the provisional class is five years.

The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) is equivalent to the LMCC, and that CCFP certification is granted without examination to physicians trained in the US, UK, Ireland, and Australia.

A supervisor is eligible to supervise a maximum of two provisional registrants and two clinical observers at one time. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia must provide written approval for the supervision of additional registrants.

SUPERVISION OF NURSE PRACTITIONERS (NPs)
The supervision of nurse practitioners falls under the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives. NP practice dos not require physician supervision. The NP is held to the same standards of care required of nursing, physician, and midwifery colleagues. 

We work closely with host clinics to help you recruit family physicians and nurse practitioners into your family practice. We promote specific needs wherever possible; given the shortage of practitioners in British Columbia we are unable to guarantee fluency in additional languages. Translation services are available; view access codes and instructions.

Welcome a family physician through PRA-BC into your clinic

PDF: PRA-BC Family Physician Recruitment Information for Host Clinics

Family physicians who have successfully completed the Practice Ready Assessment-British Columbia (PRA-BC) program will launch their practices in Fall 2025. Recruitment season for these physicians to join your clinic is now open.

The Richmond Division manages clinic-physician matching for PRA-BC. Register your clinic’s interest by selecting the relevant link below:

First-time host clinics (never hosted a PRA-BC physician)

Experienced host clinics (have hosted a PRA-BC physician in the past)

A member of the RDFP Recruitment Team will contact you to begin the process.

Host Clinic Check-Up: Preparing to Recruit a Family Physician

PDF: Host Clinic Check-Up

Clinics that are successful at attracting and retaining family physicians offer the qualities that family physicians are looking for to establish their lives and careers in Richmond:

• modern atmosphere
• team-based care
• updated technology
• collegial environment
• supportive administrative team

Email us to access our knowledgeable Recruitment Team and essential resources that can support you in the physician recruitment process.