Frequently asked questions
Answers for patients, providers, and health systems. Can’t find what you need? Contact us and we will route you to the right team.
For patients
It is a one-hour visit with a physiotherapist who evaluates your back, neck, or joint pain in detail, supported by AI-supported decision support. You leave with a clear explanation in plain language and a care plan you can start that day. Most people improve from the plan alone and never need a specialist.
Yes. About 85% of patients are triaged off the orthopaedic wait-list because they do not need surgery. For the remaining 15% who do need a specialist, your assessment finds that out early and sends a pre-screened referral with your full clinical context attached, so you reach the surgeon faster and better prepared.
A specialty assessment is $169 CAD. It is free for eligible Quebec residents aged 65 and over with a physician referral. There are no hidden charges beyond the assessment fee.
In our McGill University Health Centre spine pathway, the median wait-time fell from 27 weeks to 4 weeks. In practice that means most patients are assessed within about a month rather than waiting the 73 to 147 days that is typical for specialty care in Canada.
For providers
Allied Health Providers (AHPs) register for free. You pay a service fee only on each completed service, so your cost scales with the patients you actually see. There is no subscription and no charge for joining the provider network.
No. CareChain sits alongside how you already work rather than replacing your practice. We handle intake, clinical charting, secure referrals, and eClaims billing around the clinical work, and AI-supported decision support backs your triage. You decide how to treat, manage, or refer each patient.
You receive triage cases drawn from health-system wait-lists, matched to your discipline and your availability. These are patients who need musculoskeletal assessment and treatment, most of whom would otherwise wait months for a specialist they do not need. You see the patients who fit what you treat, not a random caseload.
For health systems
Allied Health Providers in your community assess and triage patients at volume, supported by AI-supported decision support, so specialists see only the patients who need them. In the McGill University Health Centre spine pathway this triaged 85% of patients off the orthopaedic wait-list and brought the median wait-time from 27 weeks to 4 weeks. The model addresses over-referral without adding specialist capacity you do not have.
Deployment is staged over the first months rather than a single switch-over, and we walk you through what month one, three, and six look like for your network. CareChain ships with HL7 FHIR integration, secure referrals and records, eClaims, role-based access, and 100% Canadian data residency, so it is built to integrate and to procure. Tell us the size of your wait-list and the specialties you want to address, and we will scope the timeline with you.
Yes. The spine pathway has been studied and published, and the results draw on the same evidence base as the broader literature on Allied Health Provider triage, including Mutsekwa 2019, Stute 2018, and Liddy 2020. We track wait-times, 92% patient satisfaction, chronicity risk with STarT-Back, and disability with the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), and report them so the case holds up to clinical and procurement review.
Privacy & data
Your health data is held in Canada with 100% Canadian data residency, and it never leaves the country. We operate in line with PIPEDA and Quebec Law 25, the federal and provincial privacy frameworks that govern health information.
Access is role-based, so only the people directly involved in your care, such as your treating provider and an authorised referring physician, can see your record. Records move through secure referrals across the provider network, and every access is governed by PIPEDA and Quebec Law 25.
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