CATEGORY 130 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST COLUMNISTS Dental Innovations has been working with practice owners for over 25 years helping them save and become more profitable. We want to share with you some of the key actions practice owners can take to reduce the operating costs within their practice. These actions are: rationalise, standardise and systemise, review and partnerships. 1. Rationalisation of suppliers How many suppliers are you dealing with? In our review of purchases for new DI members we often see practices ordering from 10 plus companies and sometimes up to 15. There are some obvious inefficiencies in using this many suppliers. Increased staff time on ordering, calling, searching online, or spending time with reps, plus increased stock handling. (plus freight charges) Each engagement with each supplier also fragments your purchasing power. Rationalising your suppliers to a select 5-7 will enable your team to reduce the time spent ordering and handling stock. This also helps eliminate the false economies of shopping around for the best price. The cost in wages of having a team member spending hours on the phone or online adds up. This often can negate any savings achieved. This same principle of rationalisation can be applied to other services in practice, such as laboratory. This is the approach we take for our members of Dental Innovations on an industry level to achieve savings of up to 20% for practice owners. By partnering with selected suppliers who support our network, and by focusing our purchasing power of over 750 practices through them we can achieve substantial savings for our members. 2. Standardise your products Are all the dentists in the practice using the same or different products? Standardising the products used in a practice is a key step to creating savings and efficiencies, especially if you have a multi-dentist surgery. By standardising the products used in the practice you achieve a more focused purchasing volume for suppliers and reduce the time spent ordering. This also assists in reducing the amount of wasted and expired products as the turnover rate of the products will be higher. An expired product is a 100% loss. 3. Systemisation If you speak to ten different practices, you will get ten different systems on how they order their dental consumables. What is important is to create systems that will make the ordering process efficient and accurate for the teams. It also needs to be transparent, accountable, and documented for the practice’s owners. This is an area Dental Innovations has invested a lot of time and energy into creating a bespoke online ordering system for our members. Dental Innovations online ordering portal has been designed to provide this ordering system specifically for dental practices. It allows for the ordering person to order from multiple companies at one point by placing one order with prenegotiated pricing. The ordering portal is based on a favorites list that the practice creates this becomes the default stock list and becomes the central ordering system in the practice. From a practice owner’s perspective, it has extensive budget and reporting features to make ordering a transparent and accountable system. As an extension of the online ordering, we have a stock inventory system available for members that use QR Codes to track stock received and usage in the surgery to give actual stock levels. These are examples of systems available to you as DI members to help you save both in terms of time and real savings. 4. Review of service providers I have focused on consumable ordering primarily because it is a large expense for most practices. However, there are many other services in a practice that can be reviewed. Prices increase over time, and you may be paying more than you need to. With DI this is one of the key services we offer for members and actively encourage members to review their insurance through Dental Assured. They are specialised in dental and are achieving some very good results for members. Other services we can assist practice owners save with are. u Dental consumables u Practice insurance u Practice software u IT services and support u Marketing u Merchant rate u Medical gases This review process can be applied to many services across the operation of a practice the practice just needs to be proactive in this process. We suggest a practice manager facilitate this review process incrementally and put forward suggestions to the owner for action. 5. Partnership and networking One of the simplest and most effective ways to achieve savings in your practice is to work together with other practice owners and colleagues to share ideas, find solutions and get recommendations. This is one of the core values of Dental Innovations and what we do for our members. By being part of Dental Innovations, you are gaining the purchasing power of over 750 practices. We assist dental practices systemise and save in their business. Of equal value is Networking via our Forum and being part of a proactive group of independent practice owners. u If you are interested in becoming a member, we have a fantastic joining offer available. Scan the QR code to book a time to have an individual presentation of DI and how it can benefit your practice. Alternatively, contact me, Berris 0400 001 172 or berris@dentalinnovations.com.au We would love to have you onboard. https://go.dentalinnovations.com.au/ By Berris Saultry, Director, Dental Innovations Five techniques to systemise and save Berris Saultry
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTc3NDk3Mw==