Doctors, for the most part, aren't aware they can bypass insurers to access drugs or are reliant on the process with insurance and don't separate generic drugs out from other goods and services. (Photo: Shutterstock)

What if doctors could not only prescribe drugs to their patients but also dispense them–no writing a prescription and sending it off the pharmacy? Not only would it be more convenient, it could be cheaper—a lot cheaper.

That's the premise of a proposal put before the Senate health committee this week. Dr. Josh Umbehr, cofounder of Kansas-based Atlas MD, one such company providing generics directly to patients says it's much cheaper than alternatives. In fact, Umbehr tells Modern Healthcare, “I'm cheaper than 340B.”

Umbehr related to the committee and chair Lamar Alexander, R-TN, that his practice, which he terms a “blue-collar concierge” direct primary care model that takes monthly membership fees from patients instead of accepting Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance, has a cabinet stocking about $50,000 in medications. The markup on those 200 different medications? About 10 percent. And since he gets extremely low prices on generics, his patients save money.