Quebec’s recent push to register patients with family medicine groups has brought 1.7 million residents under the umbrella of collective care, but a large share of those people still do not have a designated family doctor. Health-system data and interviews with patients and experts suggest the enrolment drive has improved administrative coverage without guaranteeing the continuity of care that many patients need.
Many registered, few attached
Figures from the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) show that between Nov. 15, 2025 and June 30, 2026, roughly 519,000 patients were added to the collective care lists of family medicine groups. In total, 658,000 people were newly signed up during that period; 138,000 were attached to an individual physician, while 152,000 transitioned from collective to individual care.
That means a substantial portion of newly registered patients remain in a model where care is shared among several practitioners rather than provided by a single, continuous clinician. For patients with complex or chronic conditions, the difference can be significant.
Patient experience: fragmented care
Sylvie Lavoie, 68, lives with diabetes, hypertension and HIV and says she has been signed up with a family medicine group for more than a year but has never managed to secure an appointment with the clinic. She described repeatedly telling her medical history to different clinicians when she calls 811 or visits hospital emergency departments.
“When I’m sick, I go to the hospital’s emergency room or I call 811 and retell my story every time. It’s very arduous.”
Lavoie’s experience illustrates how collective registration can produce a paper record of access while failing to deliver a stable therapeutic relationship that supports proactive chronic disease management.
Experts warn about limits of collective registration
Public-health specialists say there is a qualitative gap between being listed with a family medicine group and having a personally assigned doctor who knows a patient’s history.
- Régis Blais, a professor at Université de Montréal’s school of public health, told reporters this type of collective enrolment is “a bit of an artificial follow,” emphasising that individual attachment typically yields better continuity.
- Health officials point to the enrolment figures as a milestone: the province had pledged to sign up 500,000 new patients under a December 2025 agreement with family doctors and announced it reached that goal in May.
But the distinction matters to patients with multiple or complex conditions who require consistent oversight. Without a designated family physician, these patients can face repeated storytelling, fragmented records and care gaps that increase the risk of complications.
What the numbers show
| Metric | Number |
|---|---|
| Newly registered patients (Nov. 15, 2025–June 30, 2026) | 658,000 |
| Added to collective care | 519,000 |
| Attached to an individual doctor | 138,000 |
| Moved from collective to individual | 152,000 |
Consequences and questions for policy
The provincial government has framed the enrolment campaign as progress toward improving access to primary care. Yet the experience of patients such as Lavoie and commentary from academics underline that metrics based on registration can mask enduring access problems.
For policymakers, the challenge is twofold: to increase rostered, long-term attachments to family physicians and to ensure that collective models include mechanisms that preserve continuity of care for people with chronic or complex needs. Without that, administrative gains in enrolment may yield limited clinical benefit.
As Quebec moves forward, observers will watch whether the province’s targets translate into more patients seeing a single, accountable family doctor — not merely being counted on a clinic list.
