Physician Dispensed Medications represented a majority of all physicians when Norman Rockwell painted his series "The Picture of Health". In those Saturday Evening Post covers, he immortalized in the hearts and minds of all Americans - our faith and trust in our family physician.
In keeping with the caring character of the Rockwell physician, which the majority of American's feel is still their ideal even in our modern fast-paced society, physician dispensed medications are appreciated by patient and physicians - because it is the best thing for the patient and is good for the physician's practice.
Today only approximately 8% of physicians dispense their own medications due to a gradual shift in regulations and complexity of handling and tracking a significantly larger number of medications than were in use decades ago.
However, with all of the sophistication of our modern system of regulations and controls which has lead to most medications being dispensed by registered pharmacists, the results are staggering inefficiencies, less than optimal patient care, and wasted healthcare dollars.
Today, many physicians are returning to PHYSICIAN DISPENSED MEDICATIONS programs in order to eliminate:
150 million phones calls per year from pharmacists asking for clarification for the physician's prescription (Institute for Safe Medicine Practices)
an estimated 3.3 billion adverse drug reactions attributable to illegible handwriting, unclear phone orders, unclear abbreviations and doses
misuse and non-adherence of the prescription directions by the patient (American Pharmaceutical Association)
500 million phone calls each year associated with prescription refills (Forrester Research)
20% of prescriptions that never get filled at a pharmacy, meaning that the patient never gets the benefit of the treatment prescribed by the physician
Since the family physician carries the most influence with the patient, the following benefits accrue to the patient when the physician dispenses prescribed medications directly to the patient:
more convenient for the patient to get their medications in less than 5 minutes from the physician, rather than making a separate trip to the pharmacy and waiting in line for up to 45 minutes or more
improves patient compliance since the physician is able to give instructions directly to the patient and even have the patient take the first dose while in the office
Medication Sample Inventories
with pre-packaged dosing and highly regulated labeling minimizes errors and assures that the patient is getting the correct medication
