The Four C’s of In-Office Dispensing
Dispensing medications in-office provides benefits to your patients in four primary categories: convenience, cost, compliance, and confidentiality.
Convenience
Patients save a trip to the pharmacy. Pharmacy wait times can stretch to hours, and for a patient who is already feeling unwell — or a parent with a sick child in tow — one more stop is the last thing they want. When prescriptions are filled at the point of care, patients walk out of the exam room with their medication in hand and can start treatment immediately. Patients consistently value the time savings of filling prescriptions at their doctor’s office.
Cost
Regardless of the service model a practice chooses — cash and carry, insurance adjudication, or workers’ compensation — dispensing with PharmaLink saves money for patients. Because dispensing practices source medications directly and set their own prices, they can frequently offer common generic medications at prices that compare favorably with retail pharmacy pricing, while still generating income for the practice.
Compliance
According to several studies, patients fail to fill between 20% and 30% of prescriptions. Every unfilled prescription is a treatment that never begins. When medication is dispensed at the point of care, the prescription is filled before the patient leaves the office, removing the single biggest point of failure between diagnosis and treatment. Better compliance means better outcomes — for the patient and for the practice’s quality measures.
Confidentiality
Our clients report high utilization of their in-office dispensing option, especially when the condition being treated might be sensitive for the patient. Rather than discussing a prescription at a public pharmacy counter, patients appreciate the option to fill prescriptions in the privacy of their doctor’s office, handled by the care team they already know and trust.
What the Research Says
If you’d like to read more, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (part of the NIH) has a good article titled Good Intentions, Uncertain Outcomes: Physician Dispensing in Offices and Clinics that discusses many of these arguments in depth.
Patients Always Keep Their Options
In-office dispensing only adds choices for patients — it never takes any away. Patients always retain the option to take their prescription to the pharmacy of their choice, just as they do today. What dispensing adds is a faster, more private, and often less expensive alternative, offered by the provider they already trust. It is no surprise that providers who dispense often report improved patient satisfaction scores.
A Better Experience, Without Extra Work for Your Staff
These benefits reach patients without slowing down your clinic. With PharmaLink’s system, a typical dispense takes just 15-30 seconds: the patient’s label, medication information sheet, and receipt can print automatically, and built-in checks confirm the right medication goes home with the right patient. With a formulary of more than 2,000 branded and generic medications in prepackaged, ready-to-dispense form, you can stock the items your patients need most.
Ready to Get Started?
Adding PharmaLink’s medication dispensing system to your current services provides direct, tangible value to your patients. The system is easy to set up — as little as 3 business days once your application is complete — and we will be there to assist you every step of the way.
Contact us today to request more information, or learn what dispensing does for your practice on our Provider Benefits page.