As a veterinarian, stocking the right pet meds is essential to providing the highest quality of care to your patients. However, this is easier said than done.
Inventory management can be time-consuming and costly if you don’t have the right strategy in place. Working with a specialized pet pharmacy to stock pet meds for your practice is one of the best ways to streamline your inventory management and help improve health outcomes for your patients.
The Importance of Inventory Management for Veterinarians
Pharmacy inventory management is a critical process within the healthcare delivery system, including veterinary medicine. Proper inventory management allows treatments to begin faster, improve compliance and, in turn, create positive health outcomes for patients.
However, many things can hinder veterinary staff from optimizing their inventory management on top of their other responsibilities. From drug shortages and expired stock to unexpected events like a global pandemic that disrupt the supply chain and daily operations, inventory management is a constant balancing act of having just the right amount of stock on hand while anticipating demand.
When you work with a specialized pet pharmacy to help control inventory, it not only saves your staff time but can also save your practice money all while creating a better care experience for your clients and patients. Essentially maximizing patient outcomes while minimizing costs.
5 Benefits of Having a Pet Pharmacy Stock Pet Meds
These are just a handful of the reasons you should consider partnering with a specialized pet pharmacy such as Mixlab to stock pet medications.
1. Avoid Hidden Costs
The costs of stocking inventory extend beyond purchasing medications. Some of the hidden costs of inventory management you may not realize are:
- Staff time, including everything from the hiring and training to the actual procurement process and time it takes to manage inventory levels. You can expect labor costs to account for 15-20% of the total unit cost.
- The office space dedicated to receiving and holding medication can range from 8-15% of the total unit cost.
- Wasted and expired medications that are often a result of over-ordering stock and the cost of properly disposing of them.
- Customer service, or the time to ensure compliance, answer client questions and order/ship refills. Every patient call is an expense for your practice and diverts attention from other critical tasks.
- Billing management, costly billing systems, reconciliation and the tax implications that come with it.
As you can see, hidden inventory management costs can add up quickly. When you partner with a specialized pet pharmacy to stock pet meds you can often mitigate or avoid these hidden expenses altogether because you can better manage your inventory. The added bonus is that you give pet parents the opportunity to get their meds quickly (free, next-day with Mixlab) and straight from the source. And while surprises can still occur, having a more predictable inventory management cost every month can help your practice control costs and refine budgets.
2. Save Office Space
To avoid the pitfalls listed above, your practice would require a dedicated space and an efficient process–calling for reliable and expedient delivery and turnover of products–so you can keep your shelves stocked. One of the benefits of utilizing a partnership with a pet pharmacy to stock meds is that you can save storage room at your practice. Consider how much space you have dedicated to storing medications right now. Even if it’s just one room, that space could likely be more productive and profitable for your practice as an exam room where you can treat an additional patient. Or, consider focusing the space you do have for your most popular medications and leave the rest to a partner like us!
For mobile practices, the ability to save space is even more important. When every square foot counts, you can ensure it’s being used to the greatest benefit for your patients. A pet pharmacy is the perfect partner when you’re constantly on the go!
3. Source Back-Ordered Pet Meds
Can’t find the medications your patients need? Working with a specialized pet pharmacy allows you to source back-ordered pet meds when you can’t find them anywhere else. Whether it’s because of a shortage or supply chain issue, you can rely on your partner to have the pet meds you need, when you need them the most, avoiding gaps or delays in service. Plus, speedy shipping options for patient medications give pet parents a convenience that instills trust and reliability. Whether you are looking to have medications shipped to your office or directly to the pet parent, Mixlab can help!
Having the ability to source back-ordered pet meds is also essential for improving compliance and patient health outcomes because it allows for a seamless medication distribution schedule that’s not affected by sourcing issues.
4. Provide Custom Medications
When you work with a specialized pet pharmacy, you’re expanding the depth and breadth of pet meds available to your practice (and by extension your patients). Not only do you have access to generic pet meds, but your practice can also prescribe made-to-order compounded medications without worrying about how to store them.
During drug shortages, many popular commercial medications are no longer available through proprietary medicine channels, and compounding is an option that can help maintain compliance and keep veterinary patients healthy. A compounding pet pharmacy like Mixlab can provide the custom medications that help your practice remain efficient while also improving patient compliance with a variety of forms and flavors pets actually enjoy taking. Just make sure your pet pharmacy is PCAB accredited demonstrating the highest standards of quality.
5. Improved Delivery Speeds
Finally, we can’t forget about how proper inventory management with the right partner can result in faster delivery speeds. When a pet is sick, you want meds right away, but that isn’t always possible. The key is balancing patient experience with the cost to deliver medications.
Mixlab is a full-service veterinary pharmacy that offers next-day (and same-day in LA and NYC) pet med delivery across the United States. Rather than shipping pet meds to your pharmacy where they would need to be stored until your client picks it up (and risk a no-show), we ship pet medications directly to pet parents.
This added convenience for everyone involved in the care of your patient greatly reduces the risk of wasted stock.
At Mixlab, we understand the importance of working alongside veterinarians to find the best solution for your practice. This includes everything from a variety of compounded medications in the flavors and forms that pets enjoy to better instructions to make administering pet meds at home easier than ever.
Get in touch with the team today to learn more about Mixlab and how we can help improve your inventory management strategy. Now, with Mixlab Plus, veterinarians can retain lost revenue while offering your clients the premium service they deserve.
