Drawing blood is a bit of an art form. You can typically get the hang of drawing blood after 3 tries. I learned by observing one of the seasoned medical assistants where I worked at an Urgent Care. She taught me, step-by-step, how to draw blood.
At our office, we use a blood draw caddy with all of our requisite supplies
- butterfly needle
- plastic tubing
- tourniquet
- tiger-top or serum separator tube
- lavender tube
- plain red top tube
- alcohol swab
- gauze
- bandages
All of these supplies are free via our lab vendor, Quest Diagnostics. We simply log into Quanum (a website run by Quest) and order all of the supplies that we need.
When you first set up your account, they will mail you your Quest Box that goes on the back door or front door of your office. They’ll also send the Centrifuge to you at no cost.
Once we draw the blood, we centrifuge the Red Top Tube only. You have to wait 15 - 30 minutes before running the centrifuge. After that wait time, the tube spins for 15 minutes.
From there, we label the specimen by using a Dymo Printer. Our EMR, Atlas MD, allows us to print lab labels for Quest because the two platforms are integrated. We also print out a cover sheet for Quest with a large bar code that is easy to scan by the Quest lab pick-up professional.
We then set the samples in the box at the back of our office for pick up in the evening, usually around 5 pm or 6 pm each day.
Our lab results are then attached to the patient's chart by Quest AND faxed to our office. We have digital faxing set up, so we get an email instead of a piece of paper printed from a fax machine. Results typically start coming back around 10 am the next day, and then full results for most labs are back by 3 pm.
As for paying the bill, we have a client account with Quest and each lab that we run is “Client Billed” to our account. This gives the best price for our patients. We collect money from our patients individually and then pay one large monthly bill from Quest. The cost is typically $1,000 each month for a smaller panel of patients. We currently have 900 patients in our practices and our lab bills are typically in the $3,000 to $4,000 per month range, depending on how many labs we’re running.
I hope that this information helps you in your journey towards staring and growing a direct primary care practice. Thanks for watching and have a wonderful day.
- Dr. Paul Thomas with Plum Health DPC and Startup DPC
HOW CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT STARTING AN DIRECT PRIMARY CARE PRACTICE?
If you enjoyed reading this blog post and if you want to learn more about starting and growing your direct primary care practice, look no further than our book and our courses on how to start and grow your direct primary care practice. We at Startup DPC have begun compiling some of the best content available on this blog, in our book, and in our courses.
The best place to start is to take our Direct Primary Care Business Plan course, available here. From there, you can learn how to attract new patients to your direct primary care practice and how to find the perfect location or build out the practice of your dreams.
Thanks for reading and watching, and best of luck in your direct primary care journey!
-Dr. Paul Thomas with Startup DPC