My practice began keeping an inventory of contact lenses years ago to provide patients with convenience, which they value and, therefore, binds them to the practice. Specifically, patients said they loved that they could leave, same day, with their contact lenses.

That said, we realized keeping an inventory of contact lenses was not easy on our staff nor on the practice’s pocketbook.

Regarding the staff, processing inventory and keeping track of prescriptions and sending back boxes of contact lenses to the manufacture before they expired was a huge burden that, as result, negatively affected morale.

When it came to processing inventory, if a full supply of a patient’s particular contact lenses was not available, some staff would dispense a partial supply and order the rest. Others, however, would order the entire supply. Keeping tabs on this was a mess.

Regarding the practice’s pocketbook, when the practice bought 100 boxes of contact lenses, we got great pricing, but when we wanted to backfill inventory, the pricing was higher. That caused the practice’s profits to vary widely.

Also, if we changed the lenses we wanted to inventory, we would have to first sell out the lenses we had in inventory to bring in the other inventory. A lot of money was tied up in that process.

Further, closets (yes, plural) were dedicated to boxes of lenses. We felt this space could be used for a better purpose. (Today, we use this space for dry eye disease treatments and ocular nutritional supplements.)

As a result of these challenges, we began looking for a solution that would preserve patient convenience and rectify the staff and practice cost issues. That solution was creating an inventory-less contact lens practice.

Here, I discuss the four action steps my practice took to accomplish this:

1. Integrating an ordering platform
The first action step we took was to look for a contact lens-ordering platform that would simplify ordering in the practice. (See “Contact lens-ordering platforms,” below.)

The one we chose integrated with our EHR, the contact lens distributor we use, and the practice website.

Now, staff doesn’t have to perform multiple entries, keep a bunch of “carts” open, or keep a tickler file on patients who don’t order.

Additionally, staff was able to get rid of their homemade annual supply worksheet and cease using sticky notes that contain crazy math.

2. Forging partnerships with manufacturers
Next, we determined which of the major contact lens manufacturers supported the practice the most to capitalize on that. To arrive at the answer, we looked at base pricing, rebates to the patient, rebates to the office, marketing support, and bottom-line cost of goods (COGs). Two companies came out on top.

The practice’s doctors got together and set up a contact lens strategy of what contact lenses we would fit first or second in all categories of soft contact lenses. That strategy allowed us to be a bigger player with these two companies, lowering our COGs and increasing profits.

When we had a physical inventory, we were constrained by the two or three lens designs and modalities. As a result, we could never keep a physical inventory of torics or multifocals. The virtual inventory allows us to get the best pricing and drop ship directly to almost all patients.

3. Maximizing a virtual bank
Then, we worked with our contact lens distributor to maximize virtual banks of contact lenses. The virtual banks vary by manufacturer, but our favorite locks in our pricing at the lowest level for all that manufacturer’s product, not just individual product lines. Lots of virtual inventories lock you in for a pricing of one family of lenses. For example, we have an inventory for Contact lens brand A, but it doesn’t give us good pricing for its Contact lens brand B.

Now, we have our virtual inventories on auto-renew. These are the same inventories that we also negotiated to pay on 30-60-90-day terms. So, we essentially pay the same amount for contact lenses every month. Depending on the inventory and how much we use a particular brand, it will auto-replenish once per quarter or later. Then, we essentially don’t pay for contact lenses that month, or it is the same amount every month.

Having consistent lab bills and consistent COGs was as game changer for the practice. It kept us off the cash flow roller coaster.

To be fair, the lab bills and COGS vary slightly from month to month, but no longer by thousands of dollars.

 4. Creating easy and fast delivery
In recognizing the value our patients place on convenience and, therefore, wanting to maintain that, we discussed easy and fast delivery options with our contact lens distributor.

The distributor, in turn, set up a program to ship free direct to patients for any number of boxes.

Specifically, we modified the number of times per week they shipped us trial lenses (three times per week), which allowed us to “wow” the patient and not charge them a shipping fee.

The outcome
Creating an inventory-less contact lens practice has, indeed, preserved the convenience our patients value, while freeing up the staff to do more of the activities they enjoy. Such activities include showing patients the proper technique for contact lens insertion and removal. Why not give these action steps a try in your own practice? OM

Melissa A. Tada, OD, is the founding owner and partner in Mountain View Vision, in Colorado Springs, Colo. In addition to specializing in contact lenses, she has also been running the practice’s specialty dry eye clinic for the last 11 years.