What are you doing to enhance your clinic services for 2013? Dispensing from the clinic is widely accepted as a great benefit to physicians and patients alike. Medications go hand-in-hand with the care process and are a natural product extension of your clinic’s services. Let’s recap some of the benefits:
- Convenience – patients like to get their meds at the point of care.
- Compliance – according to the Journal of General Internal Medicine, 28 to 31% of prescriptions go unfilled. See my post on 9/25/12 for more specifics on compliance benefits.
- Clinic Revenue – estimates vary but the typical dispensing physician can recognize $300-$500 of additional profit per day from dispensing activities.
A softer benefit is positioning your clinic as a full-service medical provider. Many dispensing physicians offer other ancillary services that complement the care they already provide. A medication dispensing program complements core health services and adds another level of sophistication to your value proposition. Value proposition in a clinic? Absolutely! Your patients always have a choice. In addition, in office dispensing is made easier by purchasing prepackaged medications, using a robust medication dispensing system and working with reputable pharmaceutical distributors that specialize in physician dispensing (like Northwind Pharmaceuticals!).
Setting up a doctor dispensing program is easy:
- Complete the new clinic paperwork
- Submit copies of your licensure
- Decide on tracking system (logbook or online)
- Order medications
Give it a try. Your patients will love it!