Secondary care

The term secondary care is a service provided by medical specialists who generally do not have first contact with patients, for example, cardiologists, urologists and dermatologists. In the United States, however, there has been a trend toward self-referral by patients for these services, rather than referral by primary care providers. This is quite different from the practice in the United Kingdom and Canada, for example, all patients must first seek care for primary care providers and then refer secondary and/or tertiary care providers needed. In Canada, secondary care providers will not be paid by the publicly funded health care system unless the patient has been assessed by a primary care provider (a hospital emergency room doctor is considered a primary care provider, as is a general practitioner or family doctor).