Special Episode Part 2: Inside Direct Primary Care

Texas doctors can’t give you more than 3 days of meds even if you need 90. Dr. Jordan explains how this little-known law is making healthcare less convenient and more expensive for patients under Direct Primary Care (DPC). He also shares an incredible win: treating a patient with stitches just 40 minutes after they texted his clinic. This is the power and the potential of the DPC model.

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Wayne LowrySo Jordon, are there any laws that the state of Texas has on the books that you think is impeding your efforts as a DPC provider?
Jordan SalmonYeah, I think that's a great question. There's a lot that Texas is doing to help.
Jordan SalmonYeah, I think that, you know, our legislators, they're interested in the DPC movement, they see the value of it. But one, there's one particular law actually that I think would really benefit the DPC movement,

(00:29):
Jordan SalmonWhich is currently in Texas, it's the one state out of all the states in the US, we cannot give patients more than three days of prescription medications in our office.
Jordan SalmonSo if we needed to prescribe, you know, a blood pressure med for 90 days, for example, they would have to go to a pharmacy to do that, and that's just a Texas law.

(00:54):
Wayne LowrySo what would on site dispensing do for your practice specifically?
Jordan SalmonI mean, so a big thing of what we're trying to do is make healthcare more convenient for our patients, right? We do our blood draws here in-house. We try and offer a lot of services and a lot of things here in-house, you know, a lot of urgent care procedures, things like that.
Jordan SalmonSo adding the capability of just giving them their 90 days supply of medications prevents a lot of excess trips. We can do it at a much—a really affordable rate.

(01:21):
Jordan SalmonYou know DPC’s we're not really trying to make money off of those things. Those are just ways that we can help provide more services and increase the care that we're able to deliver to our patients.
Wayne LowrySo why do you think Texas is behind on that? Is it a matter of a particular lobby effort or is there a fear that if the providers are giving the drugs that they could abuse, you know, some of those controlled substances or what? What do you think the issue is?

(01:48):
Jordan SalmonYou know that is a really good question and I probably don't have a great answer, probably because I'm not a legislator. I'm not involved in that sphere and I'm sure there's a lot of lobbyists and other things and I'm sure there's some reasons where they think,
Jordan Salmon“hey, well, you know, we want to make sure that docs aren't having certain medications, controlled medications or high risk medications. And we want that double checking of having a pharmacist double check things”, which maybe that's the reason why. Although in certain regions of Texas, if there isn't a close pharmacy, it's OK for doctors to do that.

(02:22):
Wayne LowryHuh. Jordan Salmon So in certain times it's OK, but you know in a region like where I'm at, where we're not rural and we have local pharmacies, they don't want us doing that per the Texas law.
Jordan SalmonSo I hope it will change. I hope they see the value of what DPC is offering. And I think that that's something that could improve.
Wayne LowryAwesome. So why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the wins that you've had lately.

(02:43):
Jordan SalmonOhh, I love the wins, right? So wins are huge, right? I work with a lot of patients like I mentioned about lifestyle right and have patients start making more aggressive lifestyle changes to improve their blood pressure control to improve their diabetes numbers, right.
Jordan SalmonWe're always working on helping their glucose levels get under better control, working with patients on mental health, right is another huge one, and that can impede a lot of patients, you know, just overall health and well-being.

(03:11):
Jordan SalmonSo those are kind of just some general improvements that we are seeing in a number of patients. I'll tell you a couple, maybe stories of more direct care in incidents. We had one patient they texted us because they had a cut right laceration.
Jordan SalmonAnd from the time that they got that, we received the text to the time that they were walking out the door with stitches in place. 40 minutes. 40 minutes, right? That's unheard of. You're not going to get that anywhere

(03:40):
Wayne LowryWell. Yeah, most of the time you're still in the waiting room.
Jordan SalmonAbsolutely right. And but that was like from text to door leaving like the office. So I think that, you know, I wish I could provide that for every patient and hopefully we can kind of make it that capable and that accessible. But I love that accessibility of direct primary care.
Wayne LowryWow.
Wayne LowrySo what are some of the innovative things you're seeing in the DPC movement that you think if someone is a provider right now that's in a traditional space, they're looking to be innovative. What is the selling point in your mind for DPC?
Wayne LowryYeah.

(04:12):
Jordan SalmonTo why to move to DPC? there's so much bureaucracy in the insurance based system and there's so many visits that I think are unnecessary, so to speak.
Wayne LowryYeah, yeah.
Jordan SalmonLike I'm able to just take care of my patients in a way that works well for them, right? And so that's the way that healthcare should be, right? It's, you know, if someone, for example, someone's having symptoms of a urinary tract infection, right. If they meet specific criteria and you know, it's like, “Oh yeah, you need antibiotics.”

(04:43):
Jordan SalmonWe don't need to have them come into the office like I can manage a lot of those things over text and I do that a number of times with patients that are having issues or challenges and we just kind of text about some things and we take care of health concerns before things even become an issue. Yeah, exactly.
Wayne LowryGet out of control.
Wayne LowryYeah, well, that's amazing.