Duration Health — Safety

SAFETY & STEWARDSHIP

Our Mission

Duration Health is a mission-driven organization with a deep belief in patient autonomy.

We are physicians who believe that a doctor’s job is to be more than just a gatekeeper, but also an educator, collaborator, and partner in your well-being.

Our mission is to save lives by providing access to emergency medications and supplies. We also exist to empower our patients with the knowledge and tools to handle medical emergencies with confidence.

In pursuit of this philosophy, we pioneered the practice of prophylactic prescribing for emergency scenarios with our launch in 2019.

A Changing World

As Board-Certified Emergency Physicians, we see firsthand the increasing difficulty many Americans have accessing routine medical care. With a lack of available primary care, many Americans turn to urgent care centers or even the emergency department, where care is hurried, distracted, and often inadequate.

Patients in rural areas face even greater barriers to care, where life-saving emergency medical services may be remote.

And, patients traveling away from home, whether domestically or internationally, face unique circumstances in which they may be unable to access care.

The Duration Health Med Kit

To provide patients with an emergency option when routine medical care is unavailable, we created the Duration Health Med Kit.

Our physicians review each patient's needs, and we prescribe and ship a custom Med Kit based on each patient’s specific needs.

Our Med Kit formulary contains the medications most prescribed at urgent cares for acute, non-emergent conditions, along with a select set of potentially life-saving medications for emergent scenarios where help is limited.

Prophylactic Prescribing

We recognize that any prescription, whether written by your local primary care physician or an online provider, has the potential to be misused.

In addition, there are legitimate concerns within the medical community and beyond about antibiotic overprescribing and overuse.

The Duration Health evaluation process and the patient-physician consultation is designed to help minimize those risks by, among other things, informing every patient about the benefits and potential dangers of prophylactic prescriptions.

Who can buy a Med Kit?

To focus our efforts toward patients most likely to be without access to routine medical care, our patient population is limited.

  • You currently live in a state where our medical practice operates
  • You must anticipate living, working or traveling in the next 12 months, for at least 3 days:
    • outside the United States; or
    • within the United States, but in a wilderness area at least 2 hours travel time to an emergency department; or
    • within the United States, but in a medically underserved geographic area, as defined by HRSA; or
    • within the United States, but in an area at high risk of natural disaster, as defined by the US Natural Hazards Index
  • You must be in overall good health

These guidelines do not replace the independent judgment of our physicians. Only our physicians can determine whether you are eligible to receive prescriptions.

Antibiotic Stewardship

We take our responsibility for stewardship of antibiotics and other medications extremely seriously.

It’s estimated that 1 in 3 antibiotic prescriptions are written inappropriately, most often for common colds, viral sore throats, and other upper respiratory infections that do not respond to antibiotics [1]. These 47 million inappropriate prescriptions per year result not only in antibiotic resistance, but in allergic reactions, diarrhea, and other unnecessary complications. In this context, prophylactic prescribing of antibiotics is a serious issue.

None of the prescriptions a Duration Health patient might be prescribed should be used to treat common colds, viral sore throats, or other upper respiratory infections that do not respond to antibiotics — and our patients are educated about this, as well as the circumstances in which a particular antibiotic should and should not be taken — before they ever receive a prescription.

Further, unlike the antibiotic prescriptions described above, we anticipate that most of the antibiotic prescriptions written by Duration Health providers will actually never be used. Although our Med Kit in some instances includes antibiotics, each and every medication in the Med Kit is intended for use in true emergencies only. Indeed, it is intended for use in a last resort scenario — where a patient has no access to a doctor, hospital, or other medical care, and cannot obtain such access in the near future due to their remote location (or other similar factors). All Duration Health patients are required to accept these conditions and restrictions.

With these important steps in place, the public health benefit Duration Health provides via emergency access to potentially life-saving medications can outweigh the potential risks of antibiotic overuse or misuse.

Online Consultation

All online consultations are led by a U.S. licensed, Board-Certified physician. Your consultations are meant to both evaluate you and educate you on how to use your Med Kit.

The physician evaluation and consultation you will receive as a prerequisite to being prescribed any medication is a crucial step in ensuring patients understand the risks and benefits of their medical treatment. As part of your evaluation by our physicians, we’ll ask you questions to determine what type of prophylactic prescriptions might be appropriate for your circumstances. Our physician will ensure you understand the risks and benefits of the medications and supplies you’ll receive. During this process, the physician will also discuss with you the importance of using these products only if truly necessary, and will require you to agree that you'll use these products for their intended purpose only.

Of course, you should keep in mind that some patients may not receive any prescriptions following their consultation. This happens if our physician determines it would be inappropriate for a particular patient, based on factors like medical history, current health conditions, and other concerns.

After you have engaged in careful discussion of relevant risks and benefits with one of our physicians, you will be able to receive any medications prescribed to you. And a Duration Health physician will always be available to answer any questions and discuss concerns.

Trusted Pharmacy Partners

Our partner pharmacies are fully licensed, U.S. based mail-order pharmacies that specialize in filling prescriptions by mail for online telehealth companies such as ours. With your permission, we send prescriptions electronically to one of our pharmacy partners, and they dispense, package and ship your medications. Our partner pharmacies are NABP-accredited by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

We also provide you with extensive information about each medication, plus remote access to a physician, so you can follow up with questions at your convenience. We make sure you have the tools and knowledge to responsibly use the items in your Med Kit in an emergency.

Educating the Public

To educate the public and our patients about appropriate medication use, including antibiotics, we wrote and published the Duration Health Field Guide, available for free to the public on our website and included in print in all of our Med Kits.

The Field Guide includes information about appropriate antibiotic use, along with triage protocols written by our physician team regarding the use of antibiotics and other medications.

The Field Guide emphasizes antibiotic stewardship and seeking real-time advice from a physician whenever possible.

Duration Health patients also receive counseling from our physicians during the video visit or offline doctor review that accompanies each kit.

Contact Us

For more information, please contact us at [email protected]. On behalf of the Duration Health Team, thank you for reading, and stay safe.

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Duration Health, Inc.
[email protected]
2550 Pacific Avenue, Suite 705
Dallas, TX 75226
(855) 340-8969

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Duration Health has your well-being in mind. We help keep you safe with our licensed physicians, our trusted pharmacy partners, and the confidence and knowledge to handle medical emergencies. Only your Duration Health provider can decide, based on your medical history and other factors, whether it is medically appropriate for you to receive prescriptions. We do not sell prefabricated bags of pharmaceuticals. Each Duration Health Med Kit that contains prescription medications is custom assembled, tailored to each individual patient's needs.

Duration Health is not a pharmacy, is not a nonprescription retailer, and does not sell medications directly. To be able to deliver a customized kit of medications, Duration Health has partnered with a third-party mail order pharmacy. You may request that any prescriptions be sent to an alternate pharmacy. Duration Health charges an administrative convenience fee for its services, but Duration Health does not sell prescription or over-the-counter ("OTC") drugs, mark-up the cost of prescription or OTC drugs, or retain any portion of the fees our affiliated pharmacy charges to you. Nor does Duration Health provide medical advice about or prescribe OTC medications. In states where Duration Health’s physician consultation services are not offered, Duration Health only offers OTC products and does not provide clients with access to obtain a physician consultation. Clients are free to purchase OTC medications of their choice as an OTC-only kit.

You must complete the included online telehealth visit, including a complete medical history and ID verification, before any prescriptions are issued. You may not be eligible to receive items pictured or described on this site. Furthermore, renewal of your prescriptions is contingent upon continued medical appropriateness. Generics only. Brand names are listed on our site for your reference, but in most cases, only generic (non-brand) medications are included in our Med Kits. No controlled substances. Our formulary excludes controlled substances like opioids, benzodiazepines, and other potentially addictive medications. Treatment not guaranteed. No medication is guaranteed to work or guaranteed to treat a particular condition or disease. Use medications only as directed by a physician. Medication uses listed on this site are for educational purposes only and are not intended to represent indications for treatment. Email support only. Our providers are available via email to answer questions about your Med Kit. For non-emergency use only. In an emergency, call 911 or seek local emergency care. No routine care. Duration Health email support cannot be used for routine primary care. Medications prescribed by Duration Health cannot be used for routine purposes. This product is intended only for people who are unable to obtain regular medical care. You must anticipate living, working or traveling where care is unavailable. As a condition of purchase, you must consent to use of these medications only when regular access to medical care is unavailable. Your eligibility for Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) payment and reimbursement is not guaranteed; consult with your health plan, a qualified accountant, or a tax professional to determine your eligibility for reimbursement. Duration Health does not provide or claim to provide any medication or other item to prevent, treat or cure COVID-19.

The information provided on this site is intended for your general knowledge only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease without consulting with a qualified healthcare provider. Please consult your healthcare provider with any questions or concerns you may have regarding your condition. If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor, go to the emergency department, or call 911 immediately.

We maintain partnerships with various publishers and content creators to promote our products and services. These partners may receive payments as a result of your actions on our website, including, but not limited to, clicking on links, creating an account, or signing up for newsletters or other promotional materials. The compensation we provide to our partners may influence the content, topics, or posts featured on our website, but it does not affect the quality, integrity, or accuracy of the information provided.

The testimonials featured on our website are provided by real customers who have purchased our products and services. These testimonials are based on their personal experiences and opinions. It is important to note that your experience with our products or services may differ from the experiences and opinions expressed in the testimonials. You may not achieve similar results or experiences as those described in the testimonials.

See our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Privacy Policy, Notice of Privacy Practices and Terms and Conditions for more important disclaimers.