This White Paper is for registered Chinese Herbalists who also dispense their own herbs. The paper investigates key issues associated with herbal dispensing practices of Chinese medicine practitioners namely:

• The conflict of interest with financial gain through the sales of herbs
• The potential lack of appropriate skills to professionally dispense herbs
• The time and economies of running a dispensary
• The potential breach of guidelines
• The analysis of time spent in the dispensary versus treating patients and focusing on their care

The number #1 outcome might come as a surprise to you as practitioners in Australia might have been conducting their own dispensing for years not realizing it’s not optimal or best practice. It might help to realise that by doing our own dispensing, we are not focusing on our primary skillset which is treating patients. It might also reveal that there are many potential conflicts of interest and that our standards are not on par with Western medical practices, which use the assistance of a qualified pharmacist for their dispensing.

I am excited to share this paper with you because I believe, that using a qualified herbal dispenser will take your practice to the next level because it allows you to focus on helping more individuals achieve great health outcomes. I have worked with practitioners for the past 10 years and choosing to outsource their herbal dispensing or using a dedicated dispenser frees up their time and resources to look after our patients a lot better.