Medical supply spending represents one of the largest expenditure items for community health centers. This, together with changes in the way Medicaid reimburses health centers, means that administrators need to minimize supply chain costs and other unnecessary expenditures. Simultaneously, it's imperative that patients are properly cared for and that supplies are available when needed; stock outages must be avoided.
To cope with these conflicting requirements, centers need responsive supply chain solutions and supply chain management tools to optimize inventory. Here are some ways this can be achieved.
Supply Chain Management
Community health centers treat a wide range of patients with different needs, and it's essential that the right medical supplies are always available. However, it's not cost-effective to maintain large inventories, so supplies need to be replenished as soon as they are used. Here's how this can be done:
Online Tracking
Unnecessary paperwork is undesirable as healthcare workers are busy people who need to focus on their work. For this reason, it's important that online tracking tools provide the ability to keep track of costs and activity. Important features include:
Smart Reporting Tools
Online tools can provide healthcare workers and administrators with detailed reports periodically, as and when required. Typical reports would include:
Partnering With Concordance Healthcare Solutions
Community health centers are facing many challenges that threaten their ability to continue to provide quality low-cost medical care to underserved communities. Key to their ability to continue is the need to become as lean as possible and to eliminate waste. Concordance Healthcare Solutions, one of the largest healthcare distributors in the U.S., recognizes the importance of effective management of medical supply costs, and they offer three effective tools that help healthcare management provide effective care while controlling waste:
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