Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is LifeLineBC?
A: We are a grassroots, patient-led advocacy and support network drawn from people living with ME/CFS, Long COVID, Fibromyalgia, and other complex chronic diseases—and their families, friends and allied health professionals. Our committee consists of doctors, lawyers, health professionals, advocates, researchers, and patients. We are currently focused on saving the large scale virtual group medical visit model that serves a mostly homebound patient population equitably and efficiently across the province, which MSP recently announced cuts to.
Q: Are Long COVID and ME/CFS even real conditions - or just vague, catch-all diagnoses?
A: Yes, they are real, serious, and widely recognized by leading medical authorities.
Long COVID and ME/CFS are officially acknowledged by the World Health Organization, CDC, and Health Canada, with clinical criteria, diagnostic guidelines, and growing dedicated research. In fact, some of the world’s top research institutions - including Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Mount Sinai - are leading studies to better understand and treat these complex post-viral conditions.
What may look vague on paper is often debilitating in reality. Patients experience disabling fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, pain, autonomic dysfunction, and post-exertional crashes that severely impact their ability to work, attend school, or participate in daily life.
Dismissal of these conditions doesn’t make them go away - it just pushes people further out of care and deeper into crisis. Validating and treating them is a medical and ethical necessity for patients just to be able to function.
Q: Can a group model really provide personalized care?
A: Yes - and it does so in a way that’s both effective and scalable. The clinic uses a hybrid care model: group sessions provide education, peer support, and symptom management strategies, while individual medical appointments are available for personalized care planning, medication management, and follow-up.
Patients consistently report extremely high rates of satisfaction in testimonials, increased health literacy, and a sense of connection that’s often missing in traditional care. Just as importantly, the model has been shown to reduce ER visits, specialist referrals, and delays in care - especially for patients who were previously falling through the cracks.
A: Yes - in fact, for many patients, virtual group care is the most accessible and effective format available.
It allows rural, homebound, and immunocompromised individuals to access multidisciplinary care without the barriers of travel, infection risk, or long wait times. For conditions like Long COVID, ME/CFS, and Fibromyalgia - where energy, mobility, and cognitive function can be limited - virtual delivery can be the difference between receiving care and going without.
Group settings are also uniquely effective for delivering education, pacing strategies, medication guidance, and peer support - areas that are crucial for managing complex chronic illness and are often under-addressed in standard one-on-one care.
The results speak for themselves: patients report higher engagement, better symptom understanding, and reduced reliance on ERs and walk-in clinics. For thousands of British Columbians, this model is a breakthrough, not a compromise of care.
A: Because this model doesn’t compete with the system - rather, it relieves pressure from it. By providing coordinated virtual care for thousands of patients with complex chronic illnesses, the clinic prevents unnecessary ER visits, reduces specialist referrals, and decreases long-term reliance on disability programs and social assistance.
Failing to treat these patients doesn’t save money - it simply shifts the cost elsewhere, often in more expensive and less effective ways. When patients remain unsupported, they cycle through walk-ins, hospitals, and delayed diagnostics - all at a much higher system cost.
This model offers a scalable, efficient alternative that reaches rural, homebound, and immunocompromised patients who would otherwise go without care. It’s a cost-effective, responsible use of public resources.
Q: Why can’t the clinic move to in-person visits?
A: People living with these complex chronic diseases can experience chronic pain, fatigue, and may have difficulties leaving their house to access care. Many patients also live in rural or remote communities which are far away from care centers. The ability to connect with providers from the home is a known determinant of patients' access to care.
Q: Why can’t clinics just adapt to the 20-person cap?
A: Because the model depends on both scale and sustainability. It was designed to efficiently serve over 5,000 patients through large, multidisciplinary group sessions. Capping visits at 20 people not only bottlenecks patient access - it makes the model financially unworkable. At that volume, the clinic cannot afford to pay the occupational therapists, physicians, and other providers required to deliver care. The result is a shutdown in all but name, and thousands redirected to ERs, walk-ins, or nothing at all.
Q: Is there really no other care for these patients?
A: While BC is unique in Canada for developing and funding a centralized Long COVID Clinic (the Post-COVID Interdisciplinary Clinical Care Network), this service remains inaccessible to many Long COVID patients due to long wait lists and provides not only limited care options, but also for a limited time (up to 12 months). This clinic also requires a clinical referral, which renders it inaccessible for patients who do not have a primary care provider. Virtual Group Medical Visits are the only consistent, accessible care these patients have. If this model collapses, thousands of patients are pushed back onto ERs, walk-in clinics, or into complete abandonment.
Q: Where’s the hard evidence this model is cost-effective?
A: The most compelling evidence is what this clinic has quietly prevented. Without it, thousands of complex patients would be left to navigate a fragmented system alone - bouncing between ERs, cycling through specialists, and worsening without coordinated care. Instead, they’ve been stabilized and supported in one place, relieving pressure on hospitals, shortening wait times, and protecting limited system resources for everyone else.
This clinic and its pioneering use of Virtual Group Medical Visits is absorbing a population that otherwise overwhelms the system - one that typically experiences fragmented care, repeat hospital visits, and long-term disability. By keeping these patients stable, informed, and out of crisis, the clinic reduces the bottlenecks that lead to longer wait times for everyone else. This model has proven time and time that it works, and its absence would be felt far beyond its patient list.
Q: Is this just another interest group asking for special treatment?
A: No. This isn’t about special treatment - it’s about preserving a model that already works, already saves the system money, and already serves some of the most medically underserved patients in BC who would otherwise have no access to care.
Q: Some patients have raised concerns that the clinic might be profit-motivated. Is that true?
A: We understand the concern, but that perception doesn’t reflect reality. It's structure is not profit-oriented. The group care model allows providers to serve a large number of patients efficiently - many of whom would otherwise be left without access to care. Any revenue supports a broad team of professionals, including physicians, occupational therapists, and educators, and goes toward covering operational costs - not personal enrichment.
More coming soon....