CLOSED AND RESTRICTED PRACTICES - RECENT FAMILY MEDICINE GRADUATES PLACE LIMITS ON SERVICES

OBJECTIVE To determine the proportion of recently certificated Ontario family physicians who have closed their practices to new patients or restricted their services. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey mailed betwee n September 1993 and January 1994. SETTING Ontario family practices. P ARTICIPANTS All family medicine residency-trained certificants of the College of Family Physicians of Canada from 1989 to 1991 currently pra ctising in Ontario. Response rate was 70% (395 of 564 eligible physici ans). Otherwise eligible physicians practising as locums, emergency ro om physicians, or military physicians were excluded. MAIN OUTCOME MEAS URES Self-report of practices being closed to new patients and of vari ous restrictions placed on practices. RESULTS Nearly one third of resp ondents had closed their practices to new patients. Although the decis ion to close a practice correlated with length of time in practice, ph ysicians in metropolitan Toronto were significantly less likely to rep ort closed practices than physicians practising in other regions of On tario. Restrictions reported related to patients and problems, geograp hic area, and type of setting(s) serviced. About 45% of respondents di d not provide one or more of a defined set of five services. CONCLUSIO NS Results of this study suggest that family physicians restrict their practices in various ways within the first 5 years after certificatio n.