Running an In-House Pharmacy
What are the benefits of running my own pharmacy?
Running your own pharmacy does little to interfere with your day-to-day (what many physicians initially think), and in fact, will add value to your patients’ Direct Care membership.
Atlas.md has taken steps to make prescribing and dispensing medications as intuitive as possible. The process requires little detailed outside interaction from you aside from the actual act of prescribing and dispensing.
The details
The overwhelming majority of states allow the dispensing of controlled substances internally. Most states don’t even require any extra paperwork for this process. Yes, there are the occasional licensing fees, but they’re usually small; in the range of $20-$50 per year. This isn’t going to break the bank!
After much research and trial and error, we physicians at Atlas MD realized that selling wholesale and direct is our most profitable option. It boils down to this: throwing in a middleman adds cost, which is typically picked up by the patient. In selling the prescriptions directly to the patient, we eliminate that extra cost, and add benefit to the patient’s membership.
Know the rules
Most state regulations require the following:
- That the physician completely understand the medication.
- That we track lot #, expiration date, and manufacturers.
- That the logo be printed, and the information for dispense be on the Rx label.
- Pssst! The Atlas.md EMR does all of the above for you, so there’s no extra work on your part as a physician!
With the way the pharmacy is set up, some clinics are able to handle between 40-60 prescriptions per day, without any extra steps. How’s that for efficiency?
What's next?
Now that you’re up to speed on running your in-house pharmacy, you’re ready to talk about how to make sure you have patients to prescribe and dispense to! Are you worried your existing patients won’t want to make the transition with you? That you’ll wind up with an amazing clinic without any appointments on the books? Sometimes people reject what they don’t understand, which is why educating them right out of the gate is your best bet. Once they see the value you can provide them, it’ll be a no-brainer! Read on to find out how to approach patients about your decision to switch to DPC.
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