How to Implement BHRT in Your Med Spa in 6 Steps
Women come to your med spa for enhancements that make them feel beautiful and more youthful. They leave feeling refreshed on the outside. But what about symptoms that affect how they feel inside—like fatigue, vaginal dryness, and brain fog? In your discussion with midlife patients, they may describe symptoms like these. After all, hot flashes aren’t the only hormone-related symptoms of perimenopause and menopause.
One way to provide extra care for these patients is to offer bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). Follow these seven steps to expand your med spa’s services and address overall wellness with BHRT.
Step 1: Make sure your med spa is compliant
Before starting the rest of the process, there’s some paperwork to complete. Check into compliance considerations that pertain to licensing, liability insurance, and medical insurance.
- Apply for a DEA license so that you can prescribe testosterone, which is a controlled substance.
- Find out if your liability insurance carrier covers BHRT. If not, check into other options that do, such as this company.
- Decide if your practice will accept health insurance for BHRT or set it up as cash pay.
Step 2: Assess your operation to make it BHRT ready
Do you have a physician on staff who will see your BHRT patients? If not, and a nurse practitioner or physician assistant will be the BHRT provider, check your state laws to see if they need a supervising physician on record.
Make sure you have the equipment and forms you need, which may include:
- An exam table
- A storage cabinet to lock up supplies and medications, such as hormone pellets
- Consent forms, patient intake forms, EMR documentation templates, laboratory order forms, and inventory management forms
You may also need to create a standard operating procedure for implementing BHRT.
Step 3: Select vendors and order your supplies
It’s critical to partner with a reputable compounding pharmacy to provide custom compounded BHRT, such as topical gels, vaginal creams, and oral capsules and tablets.
If your provider is also prescribing hormone pellets, you’ll need vendors for the surgical supplies. Order a supply of these so you’re ready for your first BHRT patients.
If you don’t have the capability to do blood draws in house, partner with a nearby laboratory facility. Using a lab that’s physically close allows you to send your patients for same-day bloodwork for their convenience.
Step 4: Train your team
Your providers can receive training on hormones and how to prescribe BHRT, including pellet therapy, from the Hormone Health Institute (HHI). Practitioners can take the 15-hour Bioidentical Hormone Therapy & Thyroid Evaluation and Treatment Masterclass at their own pace. The class provides clinical training about hormones and pellet insertion procedures along with reference guides and protocols for introducing BHRT in your practice.
Step 5: Set up referral programs
To build your BHRT book of business, you can take advantage of two kinds of referrals: other businesses and your patients.
Look around your community for businesses that serve the same demographic as your med spa. Think hair salons, yoga or Pilates studios, and high-end gyms or women’s clubs. Create a referral relationship with these businesses.
Your patients can be a built-in source of referrals. Give them incentives—like discounts on services or products—for referring their friends to your BHRT program.
Step 6: Promote your new BHRT service
Now it’s time to implement your marketing campaign to let your target audience know about your new hormone therapy service. Use the existing ways that you let clients know about your services, and maybe add a few new promotional routes.
Here are some ideas:
- Post on your Facebook, Instagram, X, or other social media feeds
- Add a banner to your website’s home page
- Post signs in your office
- Send out mailers to existing clients and your mailing list
- Put a blurb in your med spa newsletter
You could even host an open house to target your current clients and incentivize them to bring friends.
By following these six steps, you can launch your bioidentical hormone therapy in a month or two and provide this valuable wellness service to your med spa patients.
Founded in 1985 in Golden, Colorado, Belmar Pharma Solutions is a leading compounding pharmacy organization focusing on women’s and men’s hormone health and longevity. With a special focus on women’s hormonal health and wellness, Belmar Pharma Solutions has a dedicated women’s clinical health team to help providers and patients navigate hormone replacement therapies and personalized medications. Belmar sets a high standard for safety and compliance at its six 503A Compounding Centers of Excellence across the country, located in Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Utah, and Wisconsin, as well as two 503B FDA-registered outsourcing facilities in Colorado, serving healthcare providers and patients in all 50 states.
Reference:
HHI BHRT Play Book