The @Sunnybrook Virtual ED is also open
Monday to Friday (including Christmas Day and New Year Day)
for urgent medical issues that are not life-threatening.
Please visit
sunnybrook.ca/virtualED.
Please
do not attempt to email us or leave a voicemail
in the event of an emergency.
After Hours Clinic
Weekdays
Call the office for a same day urgent appointment.
Saturdays
Call 416-782-4447 on Saturday mornings after 8:30am to
schedule a same-day appointment.
Registered patients may book online to see available time
slots.
* subject to change
Our Team
Dr. Margaret Bennett
Family Physician
Dr. Amanda Li
Family Physician
Dr. Jeyla Chen
Family Physician
Dr. Doug Kavanagh
Family Physician
Stacie Banton
Family Health Team Nurse
New Patients
Waitlist
Currently our clinic is not accepting patients and our waitlist
is full.
Registering as a New Patient
If you have been accepted as a new patient, please
contact the clinic and let us
know that you would like to register as a new patient.
Inform the receptionist of your contact information, including
your phone, birth date, email address, and health card.
If you have a preference for a specific physician, please let us
know.
If and once you have been accepted, request a "meet and greet"
appointment with the physician at a time of mutual convenience.
Preparing For Your First Appointment
Please review the general information on this website.
Bring your medications and a brief summary of your medical history
if possible.
Bring your health card.
If your old records are available from your previous family
physician, you may bring them along as well.
Our Approach to Care
At our practice, we are committed to evidence-based medicine,
meaning that we use the best available science to guide our approach
to your health and wellbeing. We collaborate with you to ensure that
any tests or treatments we recommend are supported by clinical
evidence and are truly necessary for your care. We avoid unnecessary
interventions, including certain tests or treatments, and focus on
what will genuinely benefit you. We believe in transparent,
personalized care that prioritizes your safety and wellbeing,
ensuring you receive the thoughtful, high-quality care you deserve.
Expectations for Your First Visit
The first visit is typically just a "meet and greet", giving you a
chance to discuss your health with your doctor and to see whether
the clinic is a good fit for you. There is only rarely enough time
to investigate or treat any medical issues that you may be
experiencing.
Depending on your health condition, we may need to obtain prior
copies of your medical records before proceeding. However, our
shared goal at this visit is to make and execute a plan for your
healthcare moving forward, so that we can help you as soon as
possible.
You might receive an email from 'North Toronto Medical Associates' or
'no-reply@northtorontomedical.ca' with a link to a pre-registration
medical questionnaire. Although they are optional, your answers to
these questionnaires are very helpful for your physician to obtain
your medical history and to prepare for the visit.
Parking
For our patients who take public transit, there is excellent access to
Lawrence Station.
There is very limited paid underground parking at 3080 Yonge Street
($10/30 mins), paid parking on Yonge Street ($1.25/30 mins), and a Green
P parking lot on Bedford Park Avenue just off of Yonge Street ($1/30
mins).
There is also free parking on the residential streets surrounding the
office building as well as on Lawrence Avenue.
For other requests not listed above, please call the front desk:
416-782-4447.
Scheduling Appointments
Booking
Please call the office (416-782-4447) during regular business hours to schedule an appointment.
Alternatively for non-urgent appointments, you can submit an
electronic appointment request on our
home page.
We prefer that you call within a week of booking the appointment.
We are currently booking one week in advance for
non-urgent appointments. We believe this will allow
our patients the flexibility to make the appropriate arrangements in
their schedules. We continue to reserve emergency slots daily to
accommodate patients who need to be seen urgently. Please note that
if your physician is unavailable and the issue is urgent as triaged
by our nurse, you may have the option to be seen by another
physician in the office that day.
Please do not leave a voicemail outside of office hours.
Cancellations
Please call to cancel at least 24 hours in advance of the
appointment.
Indicating Your Reason(s) for the Visit
Please inform us regarding the specific reason for your visit when
you book the appointment, so that we can prepare for the specific
issue.
For example, if a visit is for 'ear wax removal', we can prepare the
flushing equipment in advance. If a visit is for 'concussion', we
may be able to prepare educational material. This sort of
preparation leads to a more efficient and timely experience for
everyone.
Before you Leave...
Take note of whether any of your prescriptions need a renewal.
Bring your medications with you to the appointment.
Bring your health card.
The red and white health card is being eliminated. If you have a red
and white health card, please begin the process of updating your
health card. We have had a number of patients with red and white
health cards that are no longer valid.
Checking In
Please inform the front desk when you arrive, and wait in the
waiting room until called.
The receptionist may give you a portable tablet to allow you to
update your contact information and complete questionnaires.
Please ask for the tablet if you think your contact information may
have changed.
Time Management
Please arrive on time for your appointment. If you are running late,
everyone else will be forced to wait as a result of the delay.
Unless indicated otherwise, appointments are generally scheduled to
have enough time for one or two quick issues. Please help us adhere
to the allocated time so that we can stay on schedule for other
patients.
If you have multiple issues to discuss,
please inform us at the start of the visit so that
we can manage your time accordingly. It's OK to show us a list of
your issues if necessary.
Contact Information and Health Cards
Please kindly inform the office if your contact information has changed.
Also, please make sure your health card has not expired. The red and
white health card is being eliminated. If you have a red and white
health card, please begin the process of updating your health card. We
have had a number of patients with red and white health cards that are
no longer valid. The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care only notify
your physician when a patient has been de-rostered from his/her practice
because they no longer have OHIP coverage.
Office Hours and Voice Mail
Please call the office during office hours (9:00-12:00, 1:00-5:00) to
speak to a secretary.
PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE A VOICEMAIL OUTSIDE OF OFFICE HOURS.
Our front staff have become overwhelmed with the number of voicemails.
Checking and replying to all these voicemails takes away from our
secretaries' ability to answer phones during office hours, check in
patients, and phone patients with important information. Thank you for
your continued patience and cooperation.
Rostering
in family medicine is a process by which patients register their
care with a family practice, family physician, or team. At our
clinic, rostering is a process by which you connect in an ongoing
relationship with a family physician as your "primary care
provider". Rostering can be contrasted with the "fee for service"
model, where you periodically visit a walk-in clinic or family
doctor without a direct relationship in between visits.
How are patients rostered at the clinic?
Most patients sign a roster enrolment form soon after connecting
with their family physician. After the roster form is signed, the
family physician notifies the Ministry of Health that this patient
is his/her patient. Being a rostered patient comes with both
benefits and responsibilities.
Benefits of Rostering
There are many benefits for rostered patients.
Most important: being rostered means that your family physician
is compensated to take care of you, even when you are not
actually present for a visit in the office. Consequently, we can
afford to spend time ensuring that your testing and general
healthcare is kept up-to-date, without depending entirely on
your old-fashioned "annual physical". This model is contrasted
with the "fee for service" model, where patients frequently need
to come in, even for trivial matters, due to billing
restrictions.
As a rostered patient, your physician is able to communicate
directly with these multidisciplinary teams (nurse, pharmacist,
dietician, social worker and chiropodist) and consultants (e.g.,
an endocrinologist and psychiatrist). We are able to refer
patients for medication reviews, dietary counseling, mental
health counseling and foot care.
Furthermore, rostered patients also enjoy access to a number of
groups such as the cognitive behavioural therapy groups for
mindfulness, anxiety, depression or insomnia, diabetes
education, colon cancer survivorship and smoking cession. All of
these services are available to our rostered patients at no
extra cost.
Requirements for Rostered Patients
For Family Health Organizations and Family Health Teams to
function properly, rostered patients must commit to receiving
their primary health care exclusively from their family
physician. This is the responsibility we ask you to take on as a
rostered patient.
We strongly believe that receiving your primary care from walk
in clinics and home call doctor services does not provide you
with the same quality of care. Walk in clinics and home call
doctor services do not send notes, consults, or results to your
family doctor. We are committed to the continuity of care and
providing you with the most comprehensive care possible. As
such, we are respectfully asking our patients to avoid using
walk in clinics or home call doctor services. Again, we have
reserved emergency appointments every day. Even if your
physician is unavailable, we will do our utmost to book you with
another physician at the office if the issue is urgent. Please
notify us as soon as you have an urgent issue so we can best
accommodate you.
Each month your family physician receives an Outside Use report
from the Ministry of Health. This report provides your doctor
with the names of all patients that have accessed walk in
clinics or home call doctor services over the previous month.
Under our current agreement with the Ministry of Health, anytime
a rostered patient seeks medical care at a walk in clinic or
home call doctor service, that fee is deducted directly from
your family physician. Therefore, we, as your family physicians,
are being financially penalized for such use.
Summary
A Request to Avoid Walk-In Clinics, Home Visit Services, and
Other Family Doctor Services...
In summary, our hope is to provide you with good access to care
throughout the week. When booking appointments it is better if
you can arrange to see your primary physician. If it can't wait,
one of the other doctors in the office would be happy to see
you. If you are unwell in the evening or on a weekend, you can
go to the North York FHT After-Hours Clinic (or an emergency
department).
When patients seek primary care elsewhere (e.g. walk-in clinics,
student health, or sports medicine clinics), we are notified by
the MOHLTC and we are billed for the costs of these visits. ER
visits and specialist visits are not an issue.
Uninsured Services and Annual Fees
As many of you may already know, OHIP does not pay for all services that
you request from your doctor. These are called “non-insured or uninsured
services” and it is illegal and fraudulent for doctors to bill OHIP for
them. In order to maintain the financial viability of our practice and
ensure prompt service, it is necessary for our practice to charge for
these services.
If there are any questions regarding the annual fee program and
uninsured services, please contact our front desk.
Prescription Renewals During Office Appointments
When we renew prescriptions with you in the clinic or during a phone
appointment, OHIP will cover the cost.
Consequently, we appreciate it when you are proactive and ask us to
renew your prescriptions during a clinic visit.
Tip: If you inform our reception about your
preferred pharmacy in advance, we are usually able to
send your prescription directly to the pharmacy.
Many patients appreciate the convenience of these electronic/faxed
prescriptions, since the medication is often ready for pick-up by
the time they arrive.
Prescription Renewals Outside of Office Appointments
Since prescription renewals outside of office appointments are not
covered by OHIP, there is a fee for each separate renewal request
(except for patients who prefer to pay via the annual block fee).
First, please double-check that your prescription does not have any
refills remaining. If there are refills, you do not need a
prescription renewal.
If you are out of refills and don't mind the fee, ask your pharmacy
to send a renewal request to the office.
Alternatively, you may book a phone or in-person appointment with
your physician if you would like OHIP to cover this cost.
If you do not want to pay a fee, simply book a phone appointment
on this website to review the renewal with your physician.
Warning: As mentioned, there is a fee to renew
prescriptions without appointments. This fee
also applies to auto-faxed refill requests generated by your
pharmacy. If you do not want your pharmacy to auto-fax prescriptions with
refill requests, you must inform them.
Periodic Health Exams
As you may have seen in the
news, many researchers have been saying for years that it's time to ditch
the annual checkup. The "complete annual physical" is
no longer considered a good model of care. It's not even covered by OHIP anymore due to the lack of apparent
benefit shown in recent research.
We do encourage you to book periodic health reviews with your primary
physician, both to maintain a healthy and trusting relationship, as well
as to keep on top of any screening tests or other preventive health
interventions that may be beneficial. However, the frequency and the
duration of these visits varies greatly depending on your overall health
and the number of health-related issues that you are experiencing.
In summary, the "annual physical" has been replaced with a more
patient-centric, flexible model of care. If you have any health-related
concerns, rather than waiting for a physical, reach out to us at your
convenience.
What about screening tests?
On a related note, many patients are accustomed to having a "panel
of blood tests" done each year, usually at their annual physical,
"just to ensure nothing's wrong".
We now know ordering tests indiscriminately like this tends to cause
more harm than good.
Immunizations
To receive an immunization, please schedule an appointment with the
nurse and let us know which vaccine is needed.
Please confirm in advance that the vaccine is available at the clinic,
since we do not carry all vaccines (e.g., Twinrix). Some vaccines
require a prescription to allow you to pick it up at the pharmacy on the
way to the clinic.
Adult Vaccines
Name
Due
Age Range
Comments
Flu Shot / Influenza Vaccine
Every year in late October / November
Infants 6 months or older, children and adults of all ages
We strongly recommend the flu shot every year for all eligible
patients.
Tetanus / Adacel / Boostrix
Booster every 10 years.
All ages.
Adults over 15 should receive at least one combined 'Tdap'
booster vaccine (Adacel, Boostrix), containing tetanus as well
as pertussis (whooping cough), and diphtheria boosters.
Pneumococcal vaccines (Prevnar 13, Pneumovax)
Single shot (one of each)
Usually older adults; depends on risk factors such as asthma.
Sometimes called 'pneumonia vaccines' although they are better
at preventing sepsis and meningitis. Ask us whether you are a
candidate.
Shingles vaccine (Zostavax)
Single shot.
At least age 50; no upper age; most effective when given at
age 65-70.
Reduces the risk and severity of shingles infections.
Recommended. Public health coverage available soon for ages
65-70.
Combined Hepatitis A and B (Twinrix)
Initial shot, 1 month after initial shot, and 6 months after
initial shot.
All ages
Private payment usually required; acquire with a prescription
at your pharmacy.
Hepatitis B (Engerix)
Initial shot, 1 month after initial shot, and 6 months after
initial shot.
All ages;
Given to adolescents at school. Covered by Toronto Public
Health for gay men.
Hepatitis A (Havrix)
Initial shot, then a booster 6-12 months later
All ages
HPV Vaccine (Gardasil)
Initial shot, then 2 months after initial shot, then 6 months
after initial shot.
Females age 9-45; Males age 9-26
Females immunized in Grade 8. We recommend for boys as well
but public health coverage not yet available.
Newer, complementary meningitis vaccine to standard ACYW.
Optional but recommended for high-risk infants and teenagers.
Flu Shots
We usually receive our flu vaccines mid October.
We strongly encourage all patients to get vaccinated, particularly our
high-risk patients. High risk patients include patients under age 5 or
over age 65, pregnant patients and obese patients. Also, patients who
have diabetes, chronic lung disease, asthma, heart disease, liver
disease, kidney disease or cancer are at higher risk of developing
complications from the flu.
FluMist
FluMist is a nasal spray version of the influenza vaccine, which is
now available for ages 2-17. No needle required!
Flu shots are now available at most pharmacies!
We are fully supportive of you obtaining a flu shot from your pharmacy
if it is more convenient. Please let us know when you have it done so
that we can update your records.
Sick Notes
Unfortunately OHIP does not pay for sick notes, absentee notes, or
other work-related forms.
As a result we must charge a fee for this uninsured service to cover
our HR costs.
Some places of employment recompense their employees for the cost of
sick notes; please check with your employer.
If you need a note from us, please inform us at the time of booking,
or at least at the start of your visit, so that we can allocate time
to complete it.
The annual block fee covers this cost.
Click here for more
information on uninsured services.
Referrals
To request a referral to a specialist, please schedule an appointment
with the clinic.
Before we can send the referral, we usually need to ask a number of
questions and do a physical exam, so that we can adequately assess and
describe the issue.
We will try to find the best specialist for your specific issue. We
try to balance wait time, location, personal experience and specialist
expertise.
If you have a particular specialist in mind, please determine the
specialist's contact information, including the fax number.
Ensuring that the referral is successful is a
shared responsibility. Please reach out to us if you
have not been contacted more than two weeks after the referral was
initiated.
Although we are affiliated with North York General Hospital, our
referrals are not constrained to be sent only there. Other specialists
at Sunnybrook, St. Michael's Hospital, and the general community are
potentially accessible.
As long as you are rostered with us, you can take advantage of the
many helpful services within the FHT, including the free smoking
cessation program, social work assistance, and dietitian services.
Please call us for a referral if you would like to use these services.
Labs
Unfortunately there is no laboratory available for blood work in the
building.
The following labs are nearby:
2401 Yonge St. – Dynacare
2 blocks north of Eglinton
416-486-9238
1849 Yonge St.
Just south of Davisville
416-481-3401
491 Lawrence Ave W - Lifelabs
SE corner of Bathurst and Lawrence
1-877-849-3637
You can go to any lab in the city. The results arrive electronically
independent of the lab you choose, so find one that’s most convenient
for you. Note that you don’t generally have to fast for bloodwork these
days, unless we tell you otherwise.
Unfortunately OHIP does not cover travel medicine advice or testing, so
there are typically fees that you must pay when you seek this care.
Travel medicine is a complex specialty. It requires training and
expertise beyond the scope of traditional family practice.
Although we may be able to provide brief, ad hoc advice prior to your
trip, we strongly recommend that you consult a travel clinic for
anything beyond a typical North American vacation.
Check Google Maps or Apple Maps for a list of travel clinics in our
area.
There are many, many good physiotherapists in the city and in the
surrounding area. Since it is hard to objectively compare
physiotherapists, we encourage you to explore and choose someone
convenient and pleasant to work with.
Physiotherapy is not generally covered by OHIP (see below for the
exception). However, many employers provide partial coverage through
benefits plans when a physician's prescription is given in advance
of the treatment.
OHIP clinics provide funded physiotherapy for patients age 65 and
over, under the age of 18, or anyone on ODSP. A written doctor’s
referral is required.
Comprehensive site run by the City of Toronto. Great articles on
infectious disease and other public health issues. Also has links to
local dental and vaccine clinics.
