There's a growing trend among HME/DME providers that sell supply-type products: skipping in-house inventory management to drop ship products directly to customers. As an order fulfillment method that doesn't require a business to keep product in stock, drop shipping comes with benefits that gives providers the flexibility to get patients what they need, when they need it, with less financial risk.The benefits of drop shipping? You don't have to:
As an add-on component of the TIMS Software system, eDrop Ship makes drop shipping easy. You create and send purchase orders automatically to your vendor via EDI using TIMS Intake, Order Entry, or Scheduled Delivery. The electronic P/O will prompt the vendor to directly ship products to the customer, and you'll receive a confirmation or exception email. To close the loop, orders are updated in the TIMS Software system to reflect the quantities shipped and the shipping date once the EDI invoice has been received.
TIMS Software incorporates several features to improve the transparency and seamlessness of the ordering process. In particular, tracking numbers are sent from the vendor and uploaded into the TIMS system, where the information can be accessed through Customer Centric. In addition, in TIMS 7, HME/DME providers can put items tied to multiple vendors on the same TIMS order for added efficiency.
This article was originally written by Vivek Mathew of Computers Unlimited. Published 2016-03-21. Modified 2018-02-19.