Inventory Management

Create an Inventory List

Create an inventory list based on your most common activities. Rather than just listing niftysounding items, first make a list of the common maladies you see, or reasons you go on house calls (e.g., vaccination; deworming; euthanasia; itching; ear problem; abscess; urinary tract problem; geriatric pet exam; eye exam; bite wound), then mentally go through the items you’d use to examine, diagnose, and treat that type of case.
Inventory to keep on hand includes emergency medications, drugs and medications not quickly available at human pharmacies, flea control products, shampoos, and so on. Also look into online services that can fill veterinary prescriptions and ship them to the client.
You may choose to create a different “doctor’s bag” for different situations, thus making it easy to just grab the “skin bag,” for instance, when entering a home where the dog has a skin problem. Another method is to think of one bag as your exam room, one as your pharmacy, one as your bandage drawer, and another as your refrigerator.
To keep costs down and reduce chances of theft, try to write prescriptions whenever possible. If you think you will lose money by not selling medication yourself, keep track of each time you write a prescription and then work the numbers: how much would you have to purchase, and how much would you earn over a period of time (say, one month?) Medications you will always want to ‘script out include those that become out of date quickly, those that you use infrequently, and those that are costly.
What about prescription foods – is it worth ordering, delivering, and storing them? Will you lose clients if you don’t offer this service? Can you get these foods to your clients another way? (Some pet food companies offer drop-off service.)
When writing prescriptions, you may always write prescriptions to be filled at any pharmacy. However, state laws govern whether another veterinarian can fill your prescriptions. Some state laws expressly forbid this, whereas others allow it.
 

How Much Inventory do You Need?

Many house call veterinarians begin with too much inventory. Having too much means you have paid for something that sits on a shelf and doesn’t earn you money. Not enough means you either have to write a prescription or have clients wait for what they need. It will take you some time to find your perfect balance, but you can come close by finding out the delivery time of your chosen suppliers, and by keeping close track of what you use. A good computer program can help you here.
Be cognizant of the balance between bulk buying discounts and the time value of your money. You may save $10 by purchasing a case of penicillin, but how much more does that case cost than the five bottles you’d really use in the next 3 months? Will you earn the difference in that time? Could you use that money to purchase something else that will bring in more immediate income? Perhaps you can work out a purchase arrangement with a full-service hospital, where they buy medication in quantity and you purchase what you need from them. Also investigate cooperative buying groups.

Inventory maintenance

Allow one to two hours per week for inventory management. Check inventory at least weekly; do price comparisons at regular intervals even after you get your favorite distributors. Enlist your clients’ help in maintaining efficient inventory management. Tell your clients that you order on Wednesdays, for instance, and that they should let you know if they need something (prescription foods, long term medication) by that day of the week.
You can save yourself some time by keeping a list of patients who receive regular medication or food; that helps remind you when items should be ordered. Also, if you take a vacation, it avoids the inevitable problem of a client’s running out of medicine in the middle of your vacation.