Inventory
You may not be sure where to acquire medications/therapies for your infusion practice, or how to pay for them. In that event, there are a few options you can investigate.
Directly from the distributor, manufacturer, or wholesaler
From a specialty pharmacy or other pharmaceutical supplier
From a hospital pharmacy or other health system pharmacy
How to pay:
You can sometimes negotiate infusion therapy pricing directly with pharmacy suppliers. However, some insurance companies use pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to set prices and reimbursement rates on behalf of their patients, which may play a role in the wholesale pricing or reimbursement rates you receive. Either way, once you have negotiated the cost of acquiring a specific therapy, enter this amount into your financial plan to calculate how it affects revenue.
Inventory Management
- Check the expiration date of your drugs in stock
- Rotate stock
- If a patient’s drug comes premixed, try to ensure that the patient will show up for the infusion
- Some types of infusions are chemically volatile/dangerous, have a very short shelf life, or require sterile mixing sites/equipment (ie, “clean rooms/hoods”). These types of infusions may still be best handled at hospitals, so be sure to research which infusion types you might still refer out rather than keep in-house.