Medical Psychotherapy in Ontario: Therapy Delivered by a Doctor

A physician who practises medical psychotherapy sees patients for regular therapy sessions in the way a psychologist or registered psychotherapist would. The clinical work is recognisable therapy. What differs is the provider's profession, and therefore who pays.

The Medical Psychotherapy Association Canada, the national association for these physicians, describes medical psychotherapy in terms of a physician deliberately establishing a professional relationship with a patient to address health-affecting problems through communication and collaboration. The association was previously known as the General Practice Psychotherapy Association, which is a useful clue about who practises it: not only psychiatrists, but family physicians.

Ontario's Schedule of Benefits uses a similar formulation, defining psychotherapy around a physician establishing a professional relationship with a patient to treat mental illness, behavioural difficulties or problems of an emotional nature. The physician requirement sits inside the definition itself, which is why coverage follows the provider's profession rather than the type of therapy.

Three overlapping groups:

• Family physicians with a focused psychotherapy practice. The largest group. They completed family medicine training and then built a practice around psychotherapy, often through additional training and supervision.
• Psychiatrists who provide psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is part of psychiatric training, though many psychiatrists spend most of their time on assessment and medication.
• Other physicians who use psychotherapy within their practice. A physician in another specialty may treat patients this way where it is clinically appropriate.

All of them are regulated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, not by the college that regulates registered psychotherapists. The association they may belong to has no disciplinary authority; the College does.

This is not an informal category. Ontario's fee schedule contains a focused practice psychotherapy premium, payable automatically to an eligible physician. It increases the amount payable for a listed set of psychotherapy codes by 17 percent where payments for qualifying services exceed 50 percent of all payments made to that physician in the qualifying fiscal year, with a second route for physicians at 40 to 49 percent who met the higher test the previous year.

A payment rule of that specificity exists because the province recognises a group of doctors whose practice is psychotherapy. If you have wondered whether "a doctor who does therapy full time" is a real thing in Ontario, the fee schedule answers it.

The physician bills OHIP per time unit under the psychotherapy codes. A family physician is paid $80.00 per unit for individual psychotherapy under K007, and a psychiatrist $102.35 per unit for individual outpatient psychotherapy under K197, under the Schedule published 22 July 2026 and effective 1 July 2026.

You never see any of this. There is no bill and no co-payment, and the Schedule does not specify an annual per-patient maximum for these codes. That describes the billing rules, not an entitlement to a given number of sessions. The coverage rules in detail sets out the codes and the limits that do and do not exist.

Supply is the honest answer. A study published in CMAJ Open in 2020, using Ontario administrative data, found that around 3 percent of primary care physicians and 27 percent of psychiatrists provided psychotherapy. CAMH reported at the time that fewer than a thousand physician psychotherapists were practising in Ontario.

Both figures are from 2020 and rest on earlier data, so treat them as evidence of scarcity rather than a current count. We have not found a more recent published figure, and we would rather date-stamp an old number than repeat it as though it described today.

Scarcity feeds invisibility. Because there are few of these physicians, few patients encounter one, few family doctors have someone to refer to, and the route stays unknown. That is a reason to look harder, not a reason to give up: for the people who find it, this is free therapy from a regulated professional, with no annual maximum written into the fee schedule.

Route one: search the association directory

The Medical Psychotherapy Association Canada publishes a Find a Psychotherapist directory of its physician members. It is public, needs no login, and searches by city or postal code within a 100 kilometre radius.

Two caveats before you rely on it:

• The association states plainly that it cannot guarantee a listed clinician is currently taking patients or has expertise in your particular concern. It directs you to contact physicians individually.
• The directory page makes no statement about OHIP, even though its listees are physicians. Confirm coverage and referral requirements directly with the practice.

It lists members, not every physician who practises psychotherapy in Ontario. A doctor who is not a member will not appear.

Route two: ask your family doctor precisely

The wording matters more than people expect. "Can you refer me to a therapist?" usually produces a list of private practitioners. Ask instead whether they provide psychotherapy themselves, whether they can refer you to a physician who practises psychotherapy, and whether there is a publicly funded program they can refer you to.

If the answer to all three is no, ask whether they know of a physician taking referrals anywhere in Ontario. Many family doctors have simply never been asked this and have no list to hand.

Distance is usually not the obstacle you think

Where an existing or ongoing patient-physician relationship exists, Ontario's fee schedule pays physicians the equivalent of the in-person fee for insured psychotherapy delivered by video, and 95 percent for these codes by telephone. So when you search the directory, widen the radius. In much of the province a virtual physician is not a compromise, it is the only realistic route to insured psychotherapy.

1. Are you accepting new psychotherapy patients? Ask first; it decides everything else.
2. Do you need a referral, and from whom? Practice varies and there is no province-wide rule.
3. Is this billed to OHIP as an insured service? The direct question. If there is any fee, this is where it surfaces.
4. Do you offer video appointments? Relevant if you are not local.
5. What is the wait, and is there a waitlist I can join?
6. What kind of therapy do you practise? Approaches differ, and it is reasonable to ask whether theirs suits what you are dealing with.

Recognisable talk therapy: regular appointments, usually weekly or fortnightly, of roughly fifty minutes. Because the services are billed in 30-minute time units, and a service under 20 minutes does not qualify as psychotherapy at all, appointments are dedicated therapy sessions rather than therapy tacked onto a general visit.

Because your therapist is a physician, they can also prescribe, order investigations and coordinate with the rest of your care. Whether they do depends on the practice; some focus on therapy alone and leave medication to your family doctor.

There is no billing reason for treatment to end at a set number of sessions, because the Schedule does not specify an annual per-patient maximum for these codes. That is not a guarantee of continued care. Length of treatment is a clinical conversation, and it depends on the physician continuing to have capacity.

This is a genuinely scarce service and you may not find a physician with capacity. Do not treat that as the end of the search for free care.

• Refer yourself to Ontario Structured Psychotherapy. Free, no doctor required, and available across the province. Read the eligibility rules first, since it is for adults with depression or anxiety-related concerns and is not suitable for everyone.
• Ask about a psychiatry referral. Fully insured, referral required, and worth pursuing if medication or a diagnostic assessment may be part of the answer.
• Check what is funded locally. Hospital outpatient programs, Community Health Centres and community agencies employ salaried therapists whose care is free. Our main guide sets out all the routes in order.