Tracking, Analyzing and Managing Your Practice’s Inventory

The importance of managing inventory can have a significant impact on aesthetic medical practices.  Having an effective and efficient process in place to manage product inventory is necessary to not only maintain product but also to replenish product and protect practice revenue.  The cost of inventory is relevant to a medical practice and having an inaccurate system of accounting for your product inventory could create an improper need for additional storage space, added shipping costs, low inventory, stale product and could even promote theft.  Here are 3 easy steps to consider in managing your practice’s inventory.

3 Things to Consider When Managing Your Practice’s Inventory

• Tracking Inventory: Creating a system to track your inventory is where you need to start.  Whether it is manually listing your products in a spreadsheet or using a software system that syncs with your Point-of-Sale to automatically deduct inventory, be sure to have a process in place.  Proper checks and balances with daily inventory counts can help to proactively prevent theft, misuse of product, maintain proper product levels, decrease waste, replenish products and save you money.
• Analyzing Inventory: Tracking your inventory is a necessity and you will want to analyze inventory on a regular basis.  As an example, if you promote a seasonal event you will want to ensure you have enough of the products on hand for fulfillment.  Perhaps you have a holiday event where you will be giving a gift to your guests so you may want to have ample supply during that time period.  You will also want to keep track of shelf inventory that is aging and needs to periodically be replaced.  Most importantly, you want to tract your patients’ product usage to know which are products of choice and importance to your practice as well as have the ability to cross-educate patients on complementary products.
• Managing Inventory: There are many ways to streamline the process of managing your inventory and avoid manual tasking which is time consuming, inefficient and costs money.  Connecting your inventory with your point-of-sale (POS) is one of the best ways to create an automated inventory management process.  Scanning out your inventory with barcodes instead of manually will help with user or data error.  Most practices use multiple product lines and working with your vendors on a streamlined re-ordering process can cut down on back and forth communications and help to ensure that you do not run out of product.  Assigning a “Low Inventory Warning” system can be set up automatically with certain software products and avoids the cost, time and human error pitfalls associated with manually tracking inventory.

patientNOW EMR, Practice Management and Patient Acquisition & Retention (PAR) software includes an easy way to track, analyze and manage your inventory.  A dedicated barcode scanner helps you to scan your inventory out at Point-of-Sale and automatically deducts the product from your inventory.  Reports are generated on your inventory product levels, adjustment details, product reorders and even a profit projection report to show how much revenue is on your shelves.

Real Practice Story

CLICK HERE to read how one practice uses patientNOW to help track, analyze and manage their inventory at their practice.