3 Tips For Keeping Your Dental Office Well-Stocked With Hygiene Supplies

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If you run a dental office, you may wonder if there is anything you can do to streamline the process of ordering hygiene supplies. If so, use the following three tips to help you get started with ensuring your office is well-stocked.

Have The Same Dental Hygienist Do The Ordering

If you have too many people in the office ordering supplies, two things could happen. You may find that you have an excess of an item, while another one is overlooked because one of your personnel assumed it was already ordered. For example, you may find you have too many water syringes, but not enough disposable tips.

To remedy this situation, designate one person to keep the inventory and be in charge of ordering. An ideal option would be to assign this duty to one of the dental hygienists. Since they work with the supplies on a daily basis, they already have a good idea as to what is needed.

Keep A Running Inventory Worksheet

Once you have selected one your hygienists for the job, have them come up with a daily inventory worksheet that is placed in every exam room. On this worksheet, supplies that have been used can be documented so the ordering person knows what to look at when completing their inventory checks.

This worksheet is not meant to replace your ordering personnel's inventory checks. Rather, it gives them a place to begin by showing what items are used most often and may need to be ordered in larger quantity. For example, water syringes and tips are used during each appointment, so these should have higher priority.

Order What You Need For The Month

When the hygienist orders supplies, tell them to order enough for the month ahead. Not only does this ensure that your staff has enough dental supplies, but it can also save your money if you can purchase some items in bulk.

For example, to calculate how many water syringes and tips are needed for the month, tally up the daily inventory sheets, then divide them by the days used to get the average amount. Then, look at how many days your office will have patients the next month, and multiply the average by that number. Add one or two dozen to the tally for spares, then have your hygienist order that amount.

Using the above tips can help you begin designing a plan for keeping your dental office stocked. However, if you have any further questions, you may want to contact your dental supply company for further tips on maintaining inventory and smoothing out the ordering process.


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