Direct Dispensing

Apothecaries want to maintain the sponsored monopoly on dispensing over priced drugs, and the medical profession goes along with it as a convenience and to avoid an element of liability and distrust. However, in rural areas where there is no pharmacy, the trusted family physician might still engage in direct dispensing from his office. One might argue that doing so greatly reduces cost and eliminates one more level of communication wherein errors might occur. It certainly reduces red tape.

My Dad did this in his early years of practice. He once told me that he dispensed medications in a bottle -- asking the patient to bring in a urine specimen in a week for follow up. "That way I get my bottle back."