An Optimists View of Medical Marijuana During the COVID Pandemic

With so much negative reporting on the state of the US economy during the Covid-19 pandemic it’s easy to get dragged down in all the pessimism. However, while lives will be lost and many people will lose their jobs during the crisis, I believe there is plenty of room for optimism for those who work in the medical marijuana industry.

Being Deemed Essential Businesses

MarijuanaDoctors.com has been in operation for over 10 years, and it doesn't seem like very long ago that we waited, with bated breath, every year to see if Rohrabacher–Farr would be renewed. Most of our conversations with doctors mostly centered around trying to convince them they wouldn’t be arrested for recommending cannabis to their patients. We were right, none of them were ever arrested, and now in 2020 these doctors and medical dispensaries are being deemed essential business during a crisis.

While being deemed essential adds a feeling of security to the future of the medical cannabis industry, the warm and fuzzies aren’t what I’d like to focus on. In states like MA, and CA where they have both medical and recreational programs, the recreational use dispensaries have been forced to close down. This has led to a massive uptick in those states of people looking to get their medical cards during the pandemic. Suggesting that many people who had previously avoided getting a medical marijuana card are getting one so they can continue to purchase their cannabis legally.

These newly converted medical patients are likely to experience lower prices, better selection and better service now that they are buying medically. I’m willing to bet this is something they won’t forget about when it comes to renewing that card months down the road.

States Allowing Telehealth for Certifications

Coinciding with the conversion of Adult Use customers to Medical customers many states are allowing Telehealth Certifications that never did before. While we don’t know how many of these temporary measures, designed to help with social distancing, will graduate into permanent rules. One thing is for certain the cat is out of the bag and they are going to be hard to roll back should that time come.

Telehealth certifications have allowed enterprising providers to expand their reach at economies of scale not available in a world where physical locations are necessary. Providers can now set up virtual locations all across their state and in some cases multiple states, where they hold licenses. Since the majority of the costs are shared this enables them to bring more patients into their practice without greatly increasing their overhead.

Previous to the outbreak there were only 8 states(CA,ME,MO,MT,NV,NY,OK, and RI) where new certifications could be done this way. When you add the other 8 (AK,DE,HI,MI,OR,VT,WA and DC) where telehealth could also be used in some capacity for renewals or follow ups it brings the total potential market size to about 19.34 million adult marijuana users.

Since the start of the pandemic 12 more states (AR,CT,CO,IL,MA,MD,MN,NH,NJ,OH,PA and UT) have allowed telehealth on a temporary basis for new certifications. An additional 4 states(FL,LA,NM and UT) have also passed laws or temporary measures allowing telehealth for renewals and or follow ups. By our estimates, at least for the next couple of months, the potential size of the Telehealth Market for Marijuana Certifications has more than doubled from about 19.33 million to 36.87 million potential patients and now includes nearly the entirety of the legal medical cannabis market in America in some capacity.

The MMJ Market May Double Due to COVID-19.

While the loss of human life is certainly the saddest part of these times the second biggest stressor on many people's minds is their job security and the effect massive layoffs will have on our economy. At the time this article was written Forbes estimated that 22 million Americans are unemployed due to the corona virus with estimates saying it could be as high as 69 million by June. That would mean that by the beginning of the summer 20.8% of Americans may be out of a job, depressing I know.

The optimistic take away however, is that many of those people will be seeking and getting new employment in the months following the end of social isolation. Which is great news for doctors offering cannabis certifications. While it's generally accepted that the majority of the country's cannabis users do so illegally, and purchase on the black market, pre employment drug screenings cannot differentiate between illegally and legally consumed cannabis.

By estimates from Statistica.com about 38.42 million adults who regularly use cannabis currently live in states with medical marijuana programs. So, using some back of the napkin math if we assume those states' unemployment rates track with the projected national numbers at 20.8%, about 8 million adult cannabis users will be looking for a new job come the summer. Since about 50% of US companies use pre-employment drug screening that means about 4 million people are going to be highly incentivised to go get certified or risk losing the job they just got. When you consider only 2.4 million Americans had medical marijuana cards pre pandemic, I won’t be surprised if the number of card holders doubled by 2021 in the wake of the pandemic.

Not All State Programs are Suffering

In some states interest in getting certified for medical marijuana is higher than ever. The majority of the credit for the increase in these states has been due to the combination of emergency measures allowing telehealth and the shuttering of recreational dispensaries. So if you are in a state with increased traffic, how do you capitalize on it?

First thing you will want to do is get the word out. The emergency measures to expand telehealth in many medical markets is not a high profile news story. It’s safe to assume that many of the potential patients in your area aren’t even aware that they can get certified without having to worry about exposing themselves or loved ones to the coronavirus. You will want to edit online listings that you have to reflect your ability to see them remotely. Update the meta descriptions on your own site to include the term telehealth, as the term has seen higher search volume than ever following president Trump's speech in March when he announced he would be expanding it’s legal scope. If your state is allowing telehealth now it is also an opportunity to expand the scope of your practices marketing. There is nothing stopping you from taking on patients from the other side of the state, and now is a golden opportunity to extend your market share while other less enlightened providers are retreating.

What if My State Hasn’t Allowed Telehealth?

For providers working in states that haven’t passed measures that allow telehealth you will want to make potential patients aware of any additional measures your practice is taking to keep them safe. Some good ideas are: limiting the number of patients in the office to just one at a time. Clean and sanitize the exam rooms between patients. Have your staff wear appropriate PPE. If you institute these or anything else let them know. You will want to update any online profiles you have to reflect these new policies. Your outgoing message when someone calls you should say explicitly that you are open during the pandemic but will be taking precautions to ensure your patients safety. People are still looking for appointments in these states and many offices are temporarily closed, so if you are open, make sure it's obvious.

Maximize The Patients You Are Seeing

Whether you are going to be seeing patients remotely or in person during the pandemic you will want to maximize the patients you are getting. If someone is contacting you for a marijuana certification during a global pandemic it's obviously important to them, so if they aren’t showing up for their scheduled appointment what gives? It could be any number of things, maybe they found someone less expensive, maybe they lost their job or a family member fell ill between when the scheduled date and their appointment date. Frankly most of the reasons for no shows and cancelations are out of your control. Which is why it’s so important right now to limit the time between the patient's first contact with you and their appointment. The less time in between these two points and the less likely it is that something will come up and prevent them from coming in.

The biggest tool in your belt is urgency, the patient already thinks it’s urgent, that's why they are contacting you. Call them back right away, offer them a same day or next day appointment, in the case of telehealth ask if they want to do it right now. Limit the amount of time between them expressing interest and you seeing them and you will limit the number of possible exit points. The biggest asset you have when things slow down is more time, and nobody is going to think less of you if you tell them you can see them now.

Speaking of time, make sure you are trying to recontact the people that canceled or didn’t show up for their appointment. It’s easy to disregard these people but a fair number of them probably just fell on hard times and couldn’t make the appointment right now. That doesn't mean that 1-2 months down the road they won’t be able to. As we went over in the first half of the article, while lots of people will get laid off it also means the majority of them will be rehired in the coming months. Life will be a lot better in July if you have a nearly full calendar of tentative appointments than if you are starting with a blank sheet of paper.

For the patients that are coming in now consider how you can maximize the visit both in terms of relationship building and increasing the amount they spend with you. When you would have spent 20 minutes on a visit try spending 30 or even 40 minutes. Get to know the patient and their needs better and build a better relationship. You're already a hero for being there in the first place so build on that status. The more they like you, and the more they feel helped, the more likely they are to give a positive review or refer you to someone else. In a longer conversation may find out there are other treatment modalities that you can help them with, maybe even some that can be billed through insurance.

Consider Complimentary Revenue Streams

Since patients are spending more time at your office, consider if there are any products that compliment the services you provide that you can offer them. Some of the easiest and most beneficial to offer a patient you're certifying are CBD products. Since most patients benefit from using CBD in conjunction with, or instead of high THC products, it’s something they should be considering purchasing anyway. Provided you are able to offer them affordable quality products you are also likely the best source for that patient.

If you don’t provide it to them they will either be buying CBD products at a dispensary or over the counter at any number of inappropriate retail locations like gas stations, tobacco stores and headshops. It seems like everywhere you go someone is trying to sling CBD. Now, if they go to the dispensary they will likely get a quality product that has been tested for purity and potency. The problem is they will also likely pay far more than they should.This is because most American dispensaries are creating their CBD products from marijuana plants and not hemp. Sativa, Indica and Hybrid strains have long been primarily bred to contain a high amount of THC, meaning that extracting CBD from these varieties requires more biomass. When you combine that with the increased regulations around what types of facilities these plants can be grown in and how many can be produced that biomass gets more expensive to produce. To the contrary Hemp containing almost no THC naturally has a higher quantity of CBD and since it can be grown outdoors in larger quantities there is a larger supply of it. So if you can provide them with a quality hemp derived cbd product you can save them a significant amount over what they would buy at a dispensary in most cases.

But they can get it even cheaper at the gas station or head shop right? Well yea, maybe. The question needs to be asked: what are they actually getting. It’s been widely reported that the vast majority of CBD products on the market don’t contain what they say they contain on the labels. So while some certainly are good products at a reasonable price its very difficult to know which ones those are. So if you recommend CBD to someone and they take an inferior product and say it didn’t help you don’t know whether the dosage is incorrect, CBD isn’t appropriate for their needs or they got a bunk product. However if they take a product where the quality and dosage is known you can better guide that patient. If you need help finding quality products to offer your patients MarijuanaDoctors.com is building a network of CBD Manufactures that we are independently vetting. We are happy to go over what is available, your potential ROI, and which products would best serve the needs of the majority of your patients. To make things even better in most cases we can get products in your office with no upfront investment from you through consignment agreements we have with our vendors.

Take The Offensive

The last thing you will want to consider and perhaps the most important is expanding your online presence and marketing while others are retreating. As was demonstrated in the first half of this article there is very good reason to think the size of the medical marijuana certification industry could easily double by the end of the year. Since we already know the majority of people look for these types of services in online searches, the people who are the easiest to find will be the ones that benefit most from this inevitable windfall. While if you aren’t already listed on MarijuanaDoctors.com I would certainly suggest you start with us there are lots of other free and low cost options to improve your online presence. Make sure you are registered with Google My Business and your information is accurate. We also have a partnership with doctor.com to help you clean up your information across all relevant online directories including Vitals, Healthgrades, Doximity and more.

If you are interested in expanding your offerings, online presence and getting advice from people with the most experience in this space give us a call to see how we can help your business thrive during and after the COVID 19 Pandemic.