Having to be "approved" by a new doctor?

The only time that happened to me was because I was on Medicare.
The office had to decide if they wanted another Medicare patient.

I think a lot more drs are doing this. I know that as square that was our primary dr is only taking new young clients with no problems.

I've never heard of this!

Lots of private practices are doing this these days. For a lot of MDs, he or she may only take a new patient if the patient is "low maintenance" and not expected to come in every week for something. A patient that is on 30+ meds and an extensive medical history will be a lot more work and he/she may not have room in the practice for someone needing that much attention.
A patient that has several hospital admissions may not be accepted either because a lot of MDs are no longer able to admit his or her own patients and rely on a hospitalist or another MD to do the admission which means no income to the PMD for the admission.
Practices are also having to be pickier about insurance, too.

A provider can access a state-wide pharmacy database and other medical records and often determine whether or not to accept the patient based on that info. I know of a few MDs that check that religiously. If the doc thinks the patient is doc hoping, he won't accept that pt into the practice. Can't blame 'em!

Something similar happened with my DH. The doctor's office said the doctor needs to balance the needs of all of his patients. He had a few very ill patients with some higher needs. He wanted to make sure any new patients he takes on will not need more time than he can give. Naturally things happen but to start with he wanted to have some control over the time commitment. 
I had never encountered this before but it makes sense. 

We are filling out the paperwork and paying the fee to transfer my mama's care to a concierge doctor. He strictly limits his patient load and rarely takes on new patients. The retainer fee you pay him annually basically buys you access to quicker, more personalized care and a guarantee that he will coordinate all your care, even while hospitalized.

I have no problem with the idea of private practice physicians limiting their practices. It might be frustrating if you can't get accepted as a patient, but there are alternatives for medical care available through other practices, doc-in-a-box places, and emergency care facilities. (And I'm perfectly aware there's somewhere out there that's an exception to this... don't be petty and give me your outlier situation. I'm speaking of the global, more general experience we all share.)

YES! We love our doctors and since they've started limiting who they take, our care has been awesome. Same day appointments. My Dr calls me personally to give me test results (even if the results are not unexpected). SaveSave

They may want to be sure you are compliant with standardized testing. Many insurances now offer incentive payments to primary care physicians whose patient panel meets specific requirements for standardized testing. The idea is if patients pre-screen there will be less hospitalization / er visits. For example, colonoscopy at the appropriate age, mammograms at the appropriate age, well visit testing such as A1C (diabetes) etc. The insurances don't "ding" the physician for an illness or a negative / positive test result, they are awarded incentives for the patients merely being compliant with an annual well visit and other age appropriate screening(s) and including immunizations.

I'm thinking - and I could be wrong - that the idea is for people with chronic illnesses to seek care from specialists in the field of their illness, rather than going through their GP.

There are not enough primary care physicians for the influx of now insured patients. We have physicians whose new patient appointment booking time is now 4-5 months out. 4 months is a very long time when you need medications and can't get them because of the changes to medications and prescriptions. You can get on the cancellation list but most of my patients have transportation issues and can't get to a last minute appointment easily. Daily I hear complaints of how hard it is to get an appointment even if you are an established patient. Many times those appointments are 2-3 weeks out. And then everyone wonders why Urgent Cares and ER's are overrun.

You have patients who legitimately need a lot of care because of their health conditions, but you also have a large population who doctor shops and are very non compliant. Doctors are starting to "fire" patients from their practice because of non compliance with the treatment plan. I get those calls too and man are the patients hot. They all blame the physician and have excuse after excuse why they can't follow the treatment plan. In some cases its opioid related but diabetics and people with high blood pressure are the worst. They don't want to follow their treatment plan, deny they have the conditions, and want to follow every single internet theory there is. They are always smarter than the doctors.

You couldn't pay me enough to be a doctor in this country right now. As much as nobody wants to hear it, this was one of the downfalls of the new insurance plan put in place by President Obama. Nobody looked at how it would impact the current physician availability. So while everyone is now insured, nobody can see a doctor when they need to because the sheer amount of patients overwhelmed the system. I feel that doctors who are doing this are smart. They are taking a hard look at their current patient population and needs and are adding based on what they can handle and still provide good quality care to their existing patients instead of taking on every single patient that comes their way and forcing their established patients into longer waiting times for care.

That seems crazy for a Family Doctor

If this happened here and it got known because there are 600,000 people in the province without family physicians there would be protests. This is BC we protest everything. We had a riot after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup and another one after a Guns n Roses concert was cancelled. 

Yes, you're right. I didn't think that through.

You still need a primary care physician for some things.  Even for ordinary things like sinus infections.  Sure you could go to a doc in a box, but they may not be familiar enough with your care, MANY meds and treatments to catch interactions etc. Plus, many people need a referral to see a specialist etc.  My dd's pediatrican has been wonderful and I don't think a doc in a box would work for her care.  Just recently we had to see the pediatrician about some ongoing problems that just can't be ascribed to any current diagnoses.  So a referral to a cardiologist for possible pots syndrome.  Something that until recently, many doctors weren't familiar with and even now it's not always known.