Prescription home delivery for urgent care centers

Why home delivery fits urgent care patients

Your patients walk in with sprained ankles, strained backs, lacerations, minor burns, eye injuries and crush injuries to fingers. Many came straight from work, some brought by a co-worker or supervisor who needs to get back. Others arrive after a car accident, shaken and perhaps without a working vehicle.

Timing is the issue urgent care knows best. Visits cluster in evenings and weekends, outside regular pharmacy hours. A patient sent to find an open pharmacy may give up and go home, intending to try tomorrow. For someone with a freshly stitched hand or a swollen ankle, tomorrow's trip isn't much easier.

Urgent care is also usually a one-time visit. Unlike a specialist, you won't see the patient next week to ask whether they filled the prescription. Getting it right at discharge matters.

Some patients are also sent to urgent care by their employer's injury line after hours. They may not know where the nearest open pharmacy is, particularly if they work away from home. Sending the prescription for delivery gives them one clear next step.

• Evening and weekend visits outside pharmacy hours
• Workers brought in by a co-worker or supervisor
• Accident patients without a working car
• One-time visits with no follow-up appointment

How joining works

Fill out one form, and we send the agreements. Our training team helps install our partner pharmacy in your EMR or e-prescribing system. From then on, your physicians, PAs and NPs prescribe as usual and select the partner pharmacy for patients who want delivery.

Urgent care groups often run many locations on a single system with rotating providers. Tell us how your sites are organised and who prescribes where, and setup can be planned so every shift sees the same option.

What changes for your center — and what doesn't

Triage, treatment and discharge stay exactly as they are. At discharge, the provider has one more pharmacy to choose from in e-prescribing.

A full training department helps install it so it doesn't impact your workflow. Because providers rotate, it helps to include delivery in the short orientation new providers already receive.

The provider decides what to prescribe and where to send it. Because you rarely see the patient again, it's worth reminding them that the prescribing doctor decides refills, and that they should follow up with their own doctor or the treating physician on their claim.

Front-desk staff can help, too. Asking at check-in whether an injury happened at work or in a car accident flags the visits where delivery is most likely to be useful, without adding work for the provider.

• Same discharge process
• Delivery is a choice for the patient
• Medication is dispensed by our licensed partner pharmacy
• Medication is delivered to the patient's door

What to have ready

Enrollment needs practice and prescriber documents. For multi-site groups, a roster of prescribers by location is the easiest way to provide them.

Name one person per region or site who looks after e-prescribing settings. They'll be the training team's main point of contact.

• Practice details for each location
• Licence numbers and copies for each prescriber
• DEA numbers and copies for each prescriber
• A W-9
• Your EMR or e-prescribing system

Questions to ask before you join

Ask how a prescription is handled when the patient doesn't yet have a claim number, which is common at an urgent care visit. Ask what patients pay: a $5 dispensing fee applies, and a delivery fee applies, and the adjuster or insurer can tell the patient what their claim covers.

Ask which medications can't be mailed. Some medications, such as Schedule II controlled substances, may not be available by mail — your partner pharmacy will advise.

Ask, too, how training can reach providers across shifts and locations.