Over 90 per cent of all physician services provided in British Columbia are paid by fee for service under the Medical Services Plan. All hospital admissions are reported through the Canadian Institute for Health Information. These records allow a fairly accurate estimate to be made of how groups of patients use health services.

In 2001/02, the Medical Services Plan paid for over 58 million physician services or an average of more than 14 for every person in the province. However, these services are not evenly distributed as some residents use more health services than others. The table, Costs of Medical Services for B.C. Population 1998 (PDF 43Kb), shows the number of residents and the total value of the physicians' services they used in a year.

The pattern of use by the population is consistent over time. Generally, when residents are arranged in order of increasing use of physician services, half the population use about 10 per cent of all services. The 10 per cent that use the most services use about half of all the services provided. See graph Expenditure by Deciles of the Population of B.C. (PDF 22Kb).

Contrary to popular belief, people who use health services the most are not those in their last year of life, nor are they all elderly. See table Age-Sex Distribution of Top Ten Per Cent of Users (PDF 16Kb).

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Last Revised: February 15, 2007