Doctors dealing drugs to increase practice revenue!

By Sherry L. Krueger Skrueger@hna-net.com

It’s comparable to not participating in your company’s 401k to get the match. It is simply money left on the table. That’s how you need to look at point-of-service drug dispensing. It’s easy, with low investment, and your competitors just might be jumping on the bandwagon faster than you are.

The old is new again

A short history lesson is in order here: this is nothing new. Physician drug dispensing was the norm in days gone by, but somewhere along the way doctors gave up this income stream and cheerfully handed it to pharmacists. The time has come for you to reclaim your piece of the pie.

The facts

• Profits from physician drug dispensing fall outside the realm of managed care and can reach up to $50,000 annually. The average solo physician can add at least $1000/month in revenue by providing point-of-care dispensing
• Surveys suggest that as high as 75% of patients would prefer to obtain prescriptions directly from physician
• Pharmacy callbacks cost the physician $5-$7 per call
• Those costs can reach $30,000 annually
• Currently 10 percent of practices are employing drug-dispensing programs; with that number expected to reach 25 percent in the next several years.

When you combine the aforementioned information with the fact that pharmaceutical dispensing companies offer programs with service, support, training and implementation; what are you waiting for?

HNA sat down with PharmaLink Pharmaceuticals CEO, Brian Czochara to find out more about the physician drug dispensing movement. Czochara indicated that in-office drug dispensing provides physicians a way to compete with emerging mini-clinics seen popping up in drugstores nationwide. “Physicians find our services to be instantly profitable for their practice. They enjoy an increase in cash revenue in the wake of continuing cuts from private insurance and Medicare while providing an in-demand service to their patients.” Explaining just how the model works for physicians, Czochara says, “We handle all of the inventory and the practices are up and running with no upfront costs or monthly management fees.”

And Czochara provides compelling data to support the process: using national repackagers to provide unit-of-use drugs, point-of-service dispensing is 99.9% error free and improves compliance by over 60%. All this while requiring less than one minute of additional staff time to dispense the prescription.

Still not sold?
Look at this from a patient’s point of view. What mother of a screaming, sick toddler is not going to jump at the chance to get antibiotics on the spot versus another errand out to the pharmacy? It’s back to those two important words – customer service.

What do patients want

• Convenience
• Reliability
• One-stop shopping

What do physician’s get?

• Increased Practice Revenue
• Decreased costs
• Patient satisfaction
• An edge over the competition