Immigrants arriving in Israel typically pick a health fund within days of landing. They often do it without knowing what they are signing up for. That is the problem Clalit physicians are now trying to address.
Dr. Benjamin Goldstein, a family physician and regional director for Clalit’s Jerusalem District, and Dr. Danna Ekmaty Azria, a pediatrician and regional director for Clalit’s Central District, laid out the gap between expectation and reality. Newcomers see a system that looks like any other.
It is not. Israel runs on a community-care model. That means a patient does not just see a doctor.
They walk into a clinic staffed with secretaries, administrative workers, nurses, dietitians, nutritionists, and social workers. The family doctor sits at the center of that web.
Goldstein described the role bluntly: first line of care, coordinator between specialists, hospitals, and clinics. Patients go to a specialist and then come back to the family doctor to make sure referrals, tests, and follow-up care actually happen. This is not how healthcare works in many countries.
Immigrants from places where specialists are accessed directly or where primary care is weak often miss the point. They pick a health fund based on a name or a brochure. They do not compare clinic locations.
They do not check if the staff speaks their language. They do not understand that the family doctor is not a gatekeeper in the bureaucratic sense — they are the navigator.
The consequences show up later. A patient sees a specialist, gets a referral for a test, and then hits a wall. The test is not scheduled.
The referral is not processed. The follow-up never happens.
That is where the family doctor steps in, if the patient has one. If they do not, the system fragments. Goldstein and Ekmaty Azria spoke about these dynamics in a discussion that built on a broader ynet Global feature.
That earlier piece examined how many immigrants choose a health fund without understanding the structure underneath. The Clalit physicians offered the inside view: the system is designed for integration, not for standalone doctors. A patient who treats the family doctor as an optional stop will struggle.
Clalit is Israel’s largest healthcare provider. Its physicians see the pattern every intake season.
New immigrants arrive, enroll, and then drift. They do not know that the clinic down the street has a dietitian. They do not know that the nurse can handle chronic condition management.
They do not know that the social worker is there for non-medical barriers. The fix is not complicated.
It is informational. Immigrants need to hear, before they choose, that the family doctor is not a formality. They need to know that clinic locations matter, that language support matters, that the whole team matters.
The physicians are pushing that message now, but early findings suggest many still pick blind. That is where this is heading. If the message sticks, new immigrants will start treating the family doctor as the first stop, not the last resort.
If it does not, the system will keep absorbing people who do not know how to use it. The doctors can only coordinate so much.
The patient has to show up.
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