Latest / Back in 10 / Episode 27: Double-Ply Leadership: Managing Dental Inventory Like a Pro

Transcript

Episode 27: Double-Ply Leadership: Managing Dental Inventory Like a Pro · Back in 10

0:00
Chris Stone: All right.
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Fun topic.
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It's inventory management with the Boston Babes in 3, 2, 1.
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Jen Steadman: Back in 10 is a podcast for dental leaders who do it all
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and need 10 minutes to themselves.
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Savanah Carlson: It's about real conversations, not curated ones,
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the kind that happen off the clock behind closed doors, and between
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the chaos of running a practice.
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And Running Life,
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Jen Steadman: hosted by Savannah Carlson and Jen Steadman, two women
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who've led, learned, and laughed
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Savanah Carlson (2): through it all.
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This show brings honest stories, leadership truths, and the occasional
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sassy take on what it really means to lead in dentistry today,
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Jen Steadman: because sometimes the best leadership happens when
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you step away for 10 minutes.
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Savanah Carlson (2): Hello everyone.
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Welcome to back in 10.
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I'm Savanah.
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And I'm Jen.
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And today we are talking about inventory management.
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We wanna reduce our office waste, we wanna control our costs, and more
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importantly, we wanna make sure that everyone is on side with doing so.
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It got all over the omelet, so I said.
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F it.
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Jen Steadman: have that full fat latte in my sourdough cinnamon toast.
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It was delicious.
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you did, what's your, favorite protein?
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Oh, I just do coffee.
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Coffee and chocolate.
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Chocolate protein.
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Mm-hmm.
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Chocolate protein.
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Yeah.
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So good.
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Savanah Carlson (2): I mean, that's where it's at.
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Along with like a whole meal.
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But yeah, I'm all about the prophy, getting in my caffeine and making
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sure you're doing protein goals.
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But anyway, I felt super wasteful because I had to chop all of that
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into the trash and start over.
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Jen Steadman: Yeah.
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And you know what's funny, you talk about wasteful, addie had a wasteful
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thing that happened at school and she came home and was talking about it.
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And when I thought about this in inventory management, and we
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talk about being wasteful, right?
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Yeah.
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So, I'll give you the scenario 'cause this happens in the office.
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So picture this, you go to lunch and you have a tray with all of your
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stuff on it, but there's only one thing that you wanna eat on that.
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So you throw everything else away other than that one item on the tray,
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and that one item is really good.
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Like everyone wants it.
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Everyone wants that one thing.
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Savanah Carlson (2): mm-hmm.
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Jen Steadman: You have to get it with everything.
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similar like in practice, if you get things in bulk or in a
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pack There's usually one thing in there everyone wants, right?
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Yep.
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for me it used to be those little discs that were really good for
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IPR that everyone wanted to use.
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I don't know what it's called.
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for whatever reason, everyone liked the white one, but
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you had to buy it in a pack.
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No one used the rest of them.
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Wasteful.
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So then it's like, what's going on with the rest?
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Same thing happened to Addie at school and the poor kid.
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Didn't get her pizza because everyone else wanted the icy that was on lunch
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and they didn't have enough pizza.
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So the same thing happens in the dental office that things get thrown away.
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Because they're not used.
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And then when someone goes to get the thing, they're
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like, oh, I really need that.
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It's not there.
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So making sure that you have a good way to track your inventory.
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Making sure that you have a good system for ordering inventory.
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Absolutely.
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And for communicating what the team to figure out what
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they like, what they don't.
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And here, let's just listen and see if they have any suggestions too.
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to make sure that you're not wasteful because it is very easy to be
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wasteful and it takes a little bit of finesse, I'll say, to be green.
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Savanah Carlson (2): It's true.
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And you bring up a good point about making sure that you
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have a standardized, protocol
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For your team, as a leader you're working with.
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Whoever you've put in charge of ordering, whether it's a lead assistant
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another assistant or maybe it's your hygienist who is doing the ordering
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for the practice, just making sure that you assign clear responsibilities,
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but not only responsibilities.
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We also have to talk about accountability when it comes to
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office inventory management and office products, if you use.
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The last of something and do not add it to the supply list, shame on you.
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I think that was in the top three of arguments that were always happening.
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Like every morning opportunity meeting was like, well, someone used
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to last bur and didn't say anything.
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Someone did that last week.
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Mm-hmm.
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Guys, how many times do we have to talk about this?
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Yeah, if you look tag in the basket, please.
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Exactly.
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So have a clear ordering system.
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Yes.
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What do you want your team to do when things are
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Jen Steadman: Mm-hmm.
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And you just said tag, right?
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So there's a lot of offices that'll use a TAG system, but I would say
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don't wait until you take the last one.
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Wait until there's like two or three.
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Of that item, because sometimes you might go through five of those in one
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day and you just took the last one.
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That ain't on you, that you took the last one.
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That's actually four people before you because they should have done it, right?
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Mm-hmm.
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Another thing that works really well too.
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Have you ever used a scanner?
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Yeah, I loved the scanner.
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So when you have the tags, there's little barcodes and your local rep of
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your supply company can help you with this, you just scan it and it adds it to
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a list to make it really easy to order.
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way back in the day, it used to take forever.
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to order, because you had to look in and what's the code and
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what's this and what's that?
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Now it's so much easier.
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You can also have things on autoship depending on how much you use.
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I always say I would rather have you have the perfect amount or a little
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bit more in your office than too much.
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I don't want inventory sitting on your shelves that you're not many years.
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You don't wanna be a just
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Savanah Carlson (2): in case hoarder, like no one, like I have seen supply closets
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that have just when you over order, especially on, products with expiration
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dates, that's just thousands and thousands of dollars and wasted materials and money.
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Mm-hmm.
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Oh yeah.
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It's not, mm-hmm.
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No, you, I mean, I think that's where you have to track usage
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One thing that my practice did do, and a couple of assistants
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were like, why are we doing this?
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This is actually going To let us know how much an actual appointment costs
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Based on the materials.
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when you go in for a hospital visit They itemize your bill down to the
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tissue used everything is very itemized.
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So you can see the cost of the materials.
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Exactly.
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Then they're Billing appropriately.
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Your inventory management also reflects your production.
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What are the actual materials costing me for this appointment?
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Jen Steadman: Yeah, exactly.
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And you know, it does take time to do that, but man, is it eyeopening when you
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do, it's crazy eyeopening So I did it for one practice and then, a lot I'll say.
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And we went through and created a custom formulary with our supply company.
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And if you have gone through that, you know, the strenuous process that it is
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it's similar to if you had one office down to what's the gloves of choice, right?
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And I will say it's not always the most expensive one, right?
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In that process, we tested lots of different things and selected
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specific team members to help with that testing process.
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Yeah, so we had a certain number of doctors, hygienists, assistants to
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test different things, from different locations, different skill levels.
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Everything we wanted to know down to, the fluoride they were using.
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What did you like about it?
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What did you not like about it, it's the consistency, right?
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The viscosity of all these things, like there's so many.
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Different things that come into play.
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Even the composite, the impression material, if you needed it to do
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temps or something, if you didn't have a scan, like a 3D scanner
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in your practice, a 3D printer.
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So many different things and it takes forever, but it's worth it when you do.
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Yeah.
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And then you have a custom formulary or a catalog that your team orders from,
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and that's all that they order from.
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If there is something outside of that.
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Then it's like, okay, we have to go to the process.
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But really what I found when we did this is we tried to narrow it
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down to our top five distributors.
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And then when we do that, especially in a group practice, you can get better
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pricing Because if you look and you're like, oh, I'm gonna switch to this
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composite from this other one because they're willing to give me a better
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discount, and the team liked it, equally.
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And not just on the clinical level.
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Look at it on the admin level too.
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You'd be surprised at how many offices turn into Staples.
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it's incredible.
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I've never seen so many like Dimo appointment labels
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in one place at one time.
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Like, why do you have 27 roles?
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Savanah Carlson (2): Because you left.
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Because they only sell them like that.
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I must have had an old Dimo printer then, because I could only get it on eBay.
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And it came in a box of like 25 rolls.
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Jen Steadman: you must not have known me then because I could tell you the name of
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the company right off the top of my head.
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Savanah Carlson (2): I switched.
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It was just a really old system.
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Jen Steadman: Oh, okay.
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I'm sorry that you had to do that.
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We went through them, but like
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Savanah Carlson (2): I had to go through back stock before I would order anything.
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Look at where you're storing your inventory.
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Oh, definitely.
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Do an inventory storage audit and see where things are located.
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In rooms.
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I loved the standardization of inventory, Each hygiene room if you had to pop
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over to someone else's room, you knew exactly where to find the prophy paste.
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It was in the same drawer in every single room.
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Same thing for dental operatories as well standardizing the inventory
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location will also decrease.
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Over purchasing of inventory.
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Because you'll know where it all is and where to look when
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you're doing your ordering.
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Jen Steadman: if you have, a guest hygienist come into your practice
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and they don't see something in your drawer that your normal hygienist
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that works for you all the time.
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Yeah.
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He's out of the office and they're like, oh, I had to use this first 'cause
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it's gonna be expiring Soon they go to get something brand new from the
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cabinet and now it's expired, and you've wasted it because they don't see it.
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making sure things are visible makes it so much easier too.
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Yeah.
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But yeah, little whiteboard does a world of wonders, like for the team if they
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use the last of something or close to the end, that they can write it down and then
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you can take it while you're ordering it.
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Savanah Carlson (2): I always found it hard though for my lead dental
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assistant Danielle, she crushed it.
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She was so freaking amazing.
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We, it would be a recurring conversation of like, please write it on the board.
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Please put the tag in the basket.
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And as a dental manager, I don't know who didn't put the tag in the basket, so
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how am I going to address the problem?
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I don't want fear factor people of, oh no, now Savannah's ordering,
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we have to do everything, right.
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No, you should have the respect for your team.
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what would you do in that situation?
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Jen Steadman: I think it's important that they do that.
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also standardizing what day or time of day you're doing the ordering,
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because you want to minimize the amount, the quantity of orders that
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you have to do, because then there's a lot of shipping costs, right?
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But if you, so honestly, we got it down that we ordered once
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every other week or once a month.
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Oh, you're lucky.
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We were once a week.
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we ripped through things.
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we planned it out because it's time away from that assistant
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or whoever's doing the ordering.
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So we would block off that person's schedule for that amount of time.
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One, an hour, hour and a half, depending on the size of the
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practice and what's going on.
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But like if they're doing it once a month, we might take 'em
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an hour and a half to do it.
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But if they're doing that every single week, how much time is wasted?
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your team knows how.
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You know when it's getting ordered, what time of day, what day.
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You also talk about at your opportunity meeting in the morning and say, Hey,
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Danielle's doing the ordering today.
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If you need anything or know of anything, speak now or forever hold you peace.
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Because if it's not here, it's not gonna get ordered until the next time.
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Savanah Carlson (2): Right.
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Jen Steadman: And you have to make sure that everyone has all of that.
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having that system down can definitely help too.
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Savanah Carlson (2): And for you as a leader, when the team sees that
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you are invested in reducing waste in the practice, they will follow suit.
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People mirror behavior ideally.
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if you are.
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Striving for, reduced waste.
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A team should come alongside.
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You could even make it a practice initiative.
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Like this year we're having an initiative to go green and reduced waste.
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So let's look at our products we're ordering and are they biodegradable
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or do they cause help risks, right.
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Like, let's look at everything that we order in the practice and
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try to be as green as possible.
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That's a really fun thing to do as a team.
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To empower, your inventory management
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And waste reduction.
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Jen Steadman: Yeah.
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And when you're ordering only once or twice a month, you don't have
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to worry about all of the, exhaust and everything that can do to
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the ecosystem and everything too.
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So there's so many different ways that you can go green.
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You just have to make sure that you're communicating that with your team and
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that everyone's on the same page, and once you decide, you hold everyone to it.
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Absolutely.
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Savanah Carlson (2): The only thing I'll say in closing is I don't mind if you,
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spend a little extra money on double ply toilet paper for the practice.
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Jen Steadman: Double ply or it didn't happen because you are team members.
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Double ply or didn't happen is right.
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Your team members will be very appreciative and so will your patience.
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Savanah Carlson (2): All right, y'all go manage your
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inventory, get everyone on side.
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Bye.
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Thanks for spending a few minutes with us on backend
14:07
Jen Steadman: If something made you laugh, nod or feel a little more
14:10
human, share it with a friend and make sure that you're subscribed.
14:13
Savanah Carlson (2): at Back in 10 Pod for more behind the scenes updates
14:17
Jen Steadman: We're not here to have it all figured out.
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We are just here to tell you the things that we wish someone had told
14:23
us and remind you that leadership doesn't have to be perfect,
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Savanah Carlson (2): We'll be back in 10,
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back in 10.