Boost Your Bottom Line: The Impact of Smart Inventory Cabinets!
Throughout my journey in the evolving landscape of modern healthcare, I’ve been immersed in the unique challenges and golden opportunities that professional practices encounter. At Affordable Care, the dental support organization behind Affordable Dentures & Implants, our team finally struck gold with a groundbreaking technology that tackles two of the biggest headaches for any DSO and dental practitioner—workflow efficiency and smart inventory management.
During my time here, Affordable Care has experienced remarkable growth, but let’s be real—this ride hasn’t been without its bumps. Traditional hurdles like outdated processes and overflowing inventory have haunted dental practices for years, leading to skyrocketing costs of goods sold (COGS) and strained operational efficiency. When you consider that many practices either belong to a DSO or have neglected these issues for far too long, you can see why they snowball into major headaches.
Last year, we dove deep into some enlightening case studies examining cutting-edge smart inventory cabinets from Zimbis, and let me tell you, the results were nothing short of impressive. We’re now seriously considering outfitting a large portion of our organization with this game-changing technology. Here’s a sneak peek at what we discovered.
The Inventory Management Quagmire
For too many dental practices, inventory management feels like a relic of the past. The old-school systems involve tedious manual counting, tracking, and reordering of supplies, wasting precious time and increasing the chance for errors. This mismanagement can lead to either an abundance of unused inventory, tying up capital, or too little stock, which can throw a wrench in service delivery. It’s especially painful when it comes to high-stakes items like dental implants.
On top of that, practices are constantly grappling with regulatory compliance, especially in tracking and managing lot numbers for implantable devices and controlled substances.
Our case studies pinpointed specific challenges faced by Affordable Care’s supported practices, including:
Inefficient practice workflows: Valuable time lost on manual inventory checks and administrative tasks that could be better spent on patient care.
Excess inventory: A significant amount of capital tied up in unused supplies, putting a strain on the practice’s financial health.
High COGS: Elevated expenses linked to inventory management, including emergency reordering and waste from expired or misplaced items.
Revolutionary Insights from the Case Studies
Introducing smart inventory cabinets was a game-changer in tackling these inefficiencies. Dr. Louis Visser, founder and president of Zimbis, is not just a tech innovator—he’s been in the trenches as a dentist and former practice owner, so he truly understands the pain points we face.
The Zimbis cabinets are designed to automate almost every aspect of inventory management, from tracking usage to reordering supplies. They effectively expanded the staff’s operational capabilities without the need for hiring more employees—this is the type of capital-A automation that has been talked about for ages but is finally coming to fruition.
In our studies of two practices—Affordable Dentures and Implants locations in Jackson, Mississippi, and Mesa, Arizona—the results were striking:
Significant reduction in on-hand inventory: These practices managed to free up capital previously locked in supplies, shedding over $14,000 (Mesa) and $20,000 (Jackson) in excess inventory within just the first four months of utilizing Zimbis (see figure 1).
