Which Medications Do I Need to Start and Grow a Direct Primary Care Practice?
Family medicine doctors who are starting direct primary care practices often ask me which medication they need for their direct primary care practice. There are literally thousands of medication that you can order for your practice, and those might include:
Amlodipine
Amoxicillin
Atorvastatin
Aviane
Bacitracin
Benzonatate
Boosterix (TDAP)
Buspirone
Bupropion
Carvedilol
Cephalexin
Clobetasol
Ciprofloxacin
Citalopram
Clindamycin
Dexamethasone
Dicyclomine
And on, and on, and on….
That being said, my best advice is to order only what you need for your patients when your patients need it. Otherwise, you could end up with a huge inventory of medication that may expire overtime, resulting in a financial loss. Most medications have a shelf life of 12 months to 18 months, so start by ordering a few medications in small quantities, especially if you’re starting from 0 patients or under 100 patients.
This may change if you have a full panel of patients. Simply look at their med lists and order the medications that these patients commonly use. Keep those medications stocked in your inventory, and dispense and re-order as needed.
Right now, our medication inventory is over $7,000, but we started with a $100 order of Lexapro, Amoxicillin, Albuterol, Lidocaine, and a box of Nitrile Gloves.
How to Order medications for your direct primary care practice
In order to get medications into your practice, you need to set up a relationship with a medication wholesaler. We have a contract with AndaMeds and Henry Schein, but you can also contract with Bonita Pharmaceuticals and others. We get free shipping when we order $100 worth of medications at a time, and we get overnight/next day delivery. Most of our meds usually arrive at 10 am the next day if we order by 9:30 pm. Isn’t that fast?
AndaMeds literally has thousands of medications to choose from. As we use up an existing supply of Omeprazole or Metformin or Sumatriptan, we go into AndaMeds and place the medication we need in the cart. Once the cart gets “full” meaning there’s over $100 worth of medications or supplies in there, we’ll order it/close out the cart and have the meds delivered next day. It’s just that easy!
See my video below for more information:
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