I was recently asked: What type of medical practice is best suited to medication dispensing? It is a very interesting question because the tendency is to believe that doctors who prescribe a high volume of medications are the best suited for pharmaceutical dispensing. In reality, the answer is not practice-oriented at all. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly factors that make some practices better candidates for clinic dispensing – narrowly focused formularies, high patient volumes, generics-oriented prescriptions – however, I think the best answer is more basic than practice type.
In years of working with physicians who have enhanced their practices by offering in-office medication dispensing, I have found some commone threads among the doctors who I would classify as successful dispensers of medications:
- The physician must feel that the act of dispensing medications provides great value to his/her patients. If they don’t believe in it, then it won’t work.
- The physician sees himself/herself as a physician AND a small business owner. Medication dispensing works best when the physician is truly motivated to grow the practice and extend additional services to patients.
- The physician must be comfortable offering dispensing services to patients. If the physician does not promote the clinic’s dispensary, patients will not ask for it.
- The successful dispensing physician generally offers other valued-added services to patients that extend beyond the traditional medical clinic. Onsite lab services, medically-related products, alternative medicine services and weight management services are a just a few offerings that are complementary to dispensing services.