A London parent’s account is making rounds right now, and it’s the kind of thing that hits differently when you have kids. Their baby had a high fever and an ear infection. The family doctor’s line was nearly impossible to reach, appointments were backed up at least four weeks, and sitting in the ER for hours over something that needed antibiotics felt like overkill. So they went to a walk-in clinic.

A week later, they got a call: no longer a patient at that practice. The reason given? Using a walk-in clinic. The advice from the office: they should have gone to the ER instead.

It sounds unhinged, but it’s not exactly a rogue move by one bad doctor. According to multiple Londoners familiar with the provincial billing structure, when a patient registered with a GP visits a walk-in clinic, the family doctor gets charged for that visit. It comes out of a yearly per-patient funding allowance, so from the practice’s financial angle, it’s a real cost. Some offices apparently have de-rostering policies over this posted right in their waiting rooms.

“My doctor has a policy if you do it more than once they will de-register you as a patient. Policy is clearly stated all over the office.”

That’s a detail a lot of Londoners probably don’t know about until they’re already on the wrong end of it.

Not every GP handles this the same way. Some have a partner walk-in clinic their patients can use without triggering the billing hit. Others offer after-hours urgent care slots for exactly this kind of situation, a sick kid at 9 p.m., that kind of thing. The gap between practices is wide, and most patients don’t find out the policy until it’s too late.

What makes this particular situation especially hard to swallow is the suggested alternative: the ER. For a baby with an ear infection. In a city where ER waits are already brutal, that’s a rough ask.

The frustration circulating in local online groups isn’t really aimed at one specific doctor. It’s more about a billing structure that, as one Londoner put it, explains “a lot about how your GP views you.” Not every doctor takes the de-rostering route, but enough do that it’s become a real pattern people are talking about.

If you’re registered with a London family doctor and have never asked about their walk-in policy, it’s worth knowing before you need it. Ask whether they have an affiliated clinic, an after-hours urgent line, or same-day sick slots. Most practices won’t advertise these options, but they exist at some offices.

The discussion is active on r/londonontario if you want to share your own experience with your doctor’s policies, or find out what others have run into at their own practices.