Site Content nurse practitioner St. Thomas

Nurse Practitioner Policy on Accepting Clients.    

1. Clients will be accepted on a first-come, first-served approach when accepting new clients into practice. This approach can be accepted when the clients are within the NPs scope of competence, and scope of practice.  Clients can be simple episodic care or chronic care. There will be a maximum number of chronic care clients due to availability in NP practice. 

2. Clients can expect to receive accessible, competent, ethical care from NPs. Clients are expected to pay in Canadian dollars for the services they receive.    

3. Clients will not be refused care based on any prohibited grounds of discrimination set out in the Ontario Human Rights Code.    

4. Where the Nurse Practitioner refuses a client based on clinical competence, scope of practice, and/or a focused practice area, the NP will do so in good faith and clearly communicate the reasons for the refusal, and potentially the referring practitioner, where appropriate.    

5. Given the broad scope of practice in primary care, there are a few occasions where scope of practice would be an appropriate ground to refuse a prospective client. Should health care needs of the client be outside of the Nurse Practitioner’s clinical competence, and/or scope of practice, care will be referred to another primary care practitioner for those elements of care that are unable to be managed directly by the Nurse Practitioner.