When patients turn to medical cannabis: Insights from Releaf’s data

In last month's blog, ‘90,000 interactions. One clinic. Medical cannabis matters’ we revealed there were 4,600 visits to our pricing page and almost 20,000 visits to our sign-up page in the final week of June alone. These statistics, naturally, sparked our curiosity.

We wanted to know more. Not just about this week or this group of potential medical cannabis patients, but about every week since our clinic launched and every patient we support, to see how this translates into clinical behaviours. 

So, we performed another data analysis.  

In this analysis, we get into the nitty-gritty. The times, days, and even dates, Releaf accounts are created, consultations with our expert doctors and nurses are booked in, and prescribed medications are ordered, are explored here to identify behavioural patterns. 

Why? 

So that we can get to know our patients even more.

So, without further ado, let’s get started:

When do people sign up for medical cannabis?

Our recent analysis found: 

• Mondays and Wednesdays are the most popular days for people to create an account with Releaf with 15.4% and 15% of all accounts created on these days.
• This is followed by Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday (14.8%, 14.6% and 14.7% respectively), Friday (13.5%) and Saturday (12.5%).

And, that didn’t seem enough - so we got even more granular: 

• Releaf accounts are created most frequently during the day, peaking between 12pm and 3pm (17.7%)
• The next most popular time was between 9am and 11am in the morning (16.4%). 
• Only 6% of Releaf accounts have been created between 12am and 5am. 

From these figures, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that most have either signed up to Releaf during their lunch break, or, at the start of their working day. But why? 

Perhaps because their symptoms have made the morning tough, or perhaps their motivation had peaked, or perhaps because they’d ‘slept on it’ and decided to sign up after their first coffee. Regardless of the motivation, the figures remain the same. 

So, off the back of this, we’ve implemented steps to make the process as quick as possible, so that you can get back to your lunch - or start your day - with all your ducks in a row. 

How? Well, earlier this year, we integrated with NHS Login to allow patients to grant us instantaneous and automatic access to their medical records, speeding up the signup and triage process considerably. 

Why? Because our core belief has always been the same: healthcare should be easy to access, and patient-led. And with account creation being the first step in every patient’s Releaf journey, we’re continually improving the sign-up and account creation process to make it as simple and streamlined as possible.

What conditions are people turning to medical cannabis for?

So now that we’ve established when these accounts were created, let’s take a look at why. 

Our data shows that chronic pain dominates as the primary reason for signing up to medical cannabis through Releaf, affecting almost 2 out of 3 of those who create an account. 

Over half also cited mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression, and a combined 38% cited sleep-related issues. 

These clinical findings align with the trends we found when we conducted our analysis into online behaviours, and interactions with our website. Here we found our dedicated medical cannabis and mental health, and medical cannabis and chronic pain, webpages were viewed over 3,000 times in the space of 90 days, and our medical cannabis and sleeping disorder page was viewed 1,500 times in this same space of time.

And while these are the most frequently presented conditions at Releaf, the patients we treat have almost 60 different diagnosis’ altogether. 

When do people book in for medical cannabis consultations?

Now we’ve looked into when and why people make their first steps in terms of creating an account, let's have a look at when they’re keen to take the next step, and meet with a medical cannabis doctor. 

This dataset found 43% of Releaf patients book in for and pay for their initial consultation on the day they create their account, suggesting a large proportion feel confident and ready to take the next step simply after signing up.

And when it comes to the days these consults are booked in for, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays repeatedly prove the most popular.

Because of this, we’ve upped our clinical availability during the week by onboarding even more doctors and nurses to prescribe medical cannabis through Releaf - and, will continue to do so as our patient base grows. 

When do people order medical cannabis?

Now we’ve covered the account creation and appointment booking data, we thought it would be good to take a look at all things pertaining to prescriptions.

Here’s what we found: 

• Most prescription orders are placed in the morning, with 20% at 9am, 11% at 10am, 10% at 8am and 8% at 11am. 
• Meanwhile, only 1.7% are placed between 12am and 6am. 
• Releaf patients typically order their medication on a weekday, with 89.6% of orders being placed between Monday and Friday. 

So, much like account creation and consultation booking, it appears most medical cannabis patients in the UK like to get their health admin out of the way at the start of the week. But, this time we took it another step further, and looked into specific dates. 

Unsurprisingly because of salaried paydays in the UK, the 30th is the most popular day people order medical cannabis through Releaf. Meanwhile, the least popular date for payment of prescriptions is the 31st, which again is unsurprising, as not every month has 31 days. 

In general terms, there tends to be a dip in prescription activity towards the middle-late end of the month, with peaks occurring at the start and end of each month. So, what have we done since learning this?

We have enabled part-dispensing on the Releaf Dashboard - meaning patients can order their medical cannabis in 10 gram intervals, cannabis oil in 30mls at a time, and THC vapes in 0.5ml quantities. 

This means Releaf patients don’t need to buy their full monthly prescribed allowance all at once, they can check out as many times as they like within the month providing it's within their prescribed allowance, to make it easier for those who are paid weekly or bi-weekly as opposed to monthly. 

Ready to take the next step?

Our analysis shows that choosing medical cannabis is often a thoughtful, timely decision- whether it’s signing up during a lunch break, booking a consultation at the start of the week, or placing an order around payday. At Releaf, we’re continually refining our processes to make each step as smooth and patient-friendly as possible.

If you’ve been considering medical cannabis, there’s no better time to take the first step. 

Create your account with Releaf today and discover how easy it can be to access personalised, expert-led care.