As a physician, you and your staff are looking for ways to improve medical care and services for your office and your patients. There are many steps involved with seeing just one patient. This includes the check-in process, the evaluation, the check-out process and dealing with insurance companies. things such as point of care dispensing can help improve efficiency.
Beyond that, your patients must travel to a pharmacy to get a prescription while you are documenting patient notes and your staff is filing claims.
And that is just with one patient. If you are seeing more than one patient an hour, this could mean you could be assisting between 15 and 40 patients every day. You want to implement the most efficient system you can to satisfy your staff’s and your patients’ needs.
There are many ways to do this. Point of Care Dispensing is the most all-encompassing, providing benefits to your practice as well as to the customers. Below are a few of the conveniences point of care dispensing has to offer.
Easier Communications with Insurance Companies
Gone are the days where your staff must fax and refax documents to various insurance companies. You do not have to wait on hold or call backs for confirmations. Point of care dispensing comes equipped with software technology that has insurance company claims departments pre-installed.
This means with the click of a button your billing staff can send claim forms directly to the insurance company’s portal.
No More Communicating with Pharmacists
Physician and Pharmacy communications aren’t the best. It is mostly done through technology.
But, you can eliminate faxing, refaxing and back and forth phone calls with the pharmacist. All your patient’s information is stored in the point of care dispensing software program, which allows you to distribute medicine to your patients.
The process is simple. You or your staff enters the prescription into the computer. A label is printed with all the details of your patient and their prescription. You then retrieve the prepackaged prescription from the dispensary box, hand it to your patient and you are working with your next patient in no time at all.
Point of Care Dispensing Saves Your Patient Time
Your patients will love in-office dispensing. Some patients hate going to the pharmacy to wait for a prescription so much that they skip the process altogether. Instead, they go home, and their health remains poor.
By prescribing medicines at the point of care, you have more insight to whether your patients are taking their medicine as prescribed. You will be able to measure health outcomes for your patients and determine if their improvement, or lack of, is related to the medicine you dispensed.
Your patients will be quite happy to get their medicine at the point of care. This means they do not have to travel, even for a short distance, to the pharmacist. They don’t have to wait an hour or more for their prescription. They can enjoy immediate relief in some instances.
Point of Care dispensing saves your patients anywhere from one hour to several hours of time. It saves you time by eliminating pharmacy communications, giving you freedom to focus on the care of your patients.
Patients Are More Compliant
As mentioned before, some patients hate going to the pharmacy so much they avoid it. This means they are not likely taking the medicine you prescribed. This means risky behavior that can lead to even poorer health.
When you patient receives their medicine at the point of care, they are more likely to feel obligated to fill it and take it as prescribed.
You can monitor their intake and measure their outcomes. Because the patient knows you will be able to see their chart to determine if they are taking their medicine, they are more likely to follow their schedule. They want to please you by taking their medications.
When they travel to a pharmacy, you really have no way of knowing if they filled their prescription or not. You must depend on them telling you the truth at their next visit. Or, they will be making a return appointment sooner than expected due to complications of not taking their medicine.
The software used in point of care dispensing can automatically tell you if your patients are requesting their refills as expected. If not, you can consult with them to help them remain compliant.
Point of care dispensing provides you and all your patients with conveniences unavailable anywhere else. It is these conveniences that will keep patients loyal to your practice. You will be a standout practice in your community.