Nixon Medical’s Loss-Prevention Policy: A Better Way to Handle Product Loss and Damage

March 31, 2023 by Nixon Medical

Managing a busy outpatient practice isn’t easy, and surprise charges to your monthly bill shouldn’t take up valuable space on your to-do list. Inevitably, regular use will lead to damaged or lost garments and linens—but rather than being penalized or hit with unexpected fees every month, Nixon Medical’s Loss-Damage Protection (LDP) program protects you from surprise billing and product shortages. Today especially, as costs are rising and supply shortages continue, medical laundry service vendors must take proactive measures to help customers manage costs and provide guaranteed product availability with expert linen inventory management.

Learn how our new loss-damage prevention policy protects your outpatient healthcare center in today’s volatile economic climate. This program supplements our industry-leading service difference and no-minimum service agreements, guaranteeing more predictable pricing, greater product availability, and seamless inventory management to help you improve operations and care.

 

How Our Loss-Prevention Policy Benefits Outpatient Centers

Many industries maintain loss prevention programs. While in retail environments, loss prevention aims to prevent theft or fraud, in the medical laundry and rental sector, loss-damage protection programs help customers prepare and plan for inevitable product loss and damage. During the regular course of use by clinicians and patients, medical garments and linens are subject to bodily fluids, oils, creams, and everyday wear-and-tear that will eventually lead to an irreparable or discarded textile. Since this loss and damage are predictable, we developed a program that plans ahead and proactively covers the costs of these lost or damaged garments using a thoughtful percentage-based approach.

 

How to Build the Ideal Healthcare Linen Services Agreement

Managing a healthcare facility can be complicated, but by building an ideal service agreement for medical linen services, office managers and healthcare administrators can simplify inventory management, stocking, laundering, and oversight. But how do you create an agreement that works? It begins with proper planning, then designing a contract that works for both parties, and finally, continued management of your agreement.

 

Common Sources of Lost or Damaged Medical Garments

Medical laundry service vendors know that lost or damaged linens and garments are part of the deal. However, office administrators often incur surprise charges in their monthly bills for product replacement, creating discrepancies in their budget and inventory levels. That’s where Nixon Medical is doing things differently. When you outsource your hospital or healthcare center’s laundry service to us, your healthcare service agreement will already account for lost or damaged garments through our LDP program. Our loss-prevention policy plans ahead for these common scenarios:

 

Loss from Discarded or Misplaced Products

Scrub loss is a common occurrence in medical facilities. It’s common for clinicians or staff members to wear their scrubs or embroidered lab coats home, leading to the garment being misplaced or accidentally discarded. Additionally, as clinicians and patients use linens and garments in treatment rooms throughout the day, products become soiled with bodily fluids, oils, or creams, causing staff to wrongly discard or misplace items. While inventory management and scrub dispensing machines exist to prevent such loss, our healthcare service agreements account for this inevitable human error.

 

Damages from Regular Wear and Tear

Similar to product loss, damage to garments and linens is expected by medical laundry service vendors. As medical apparel and linens are laundered and reused, regular wear and tear will occur, eventually leading to an irreparable or discarded textile. Planning for these replacements ensures that healthcare centers always have the high-quality and patient-presentable inventory they need.

 

Ways Outpatient Centers Can Prevent or Prepare for Product Loss

Leverage Loss-Prevention Policies

Whether through your medical laundry service vendor or in-house operation, leverage a loss-prevention policy to prepare for misplaced or discarded garments. A loss-prevention policy focuses on implementing procedures to eliminate or plan for preventable loss. This can include policies that pass on the costs of lost garments to the employee responsible, or it might look like establishing a proactive loss-damage protection policy in your healthcare service agreement.

 

Know Where Theft Is Occurring

While actual “theft” is likely not the intention when an employee takes home and misplaces garments, it remains a top driver of product loss and replacement charges. To curb product theft in your healthcare center, leverage smart linen inventory management solutions.

 

Educate Staff About Product Loss

It might sound simple, but educating your staff about product loss can go a long way. Often, staff members aren’t aware that product loss is happening. By bringing awareness to the realities of product loss and the subsequent shortages and charges that can occur, your staff is more likely to be mindful of how they treat garments and linens and where they return them for reuse.

 

Nixon Medical’s Built-In Loss-Damage Protection Program

At Nixon Medical, your service experience and convenience are our top priorities. Our industry-leading service difference is centered on making medical apparel and linens the easiest part of your job. That’s why we offer expert linen inventory management and a convenient Loss-Damage Protection program to reduce product loss and damage and prepare for the inevitable with predictable, transparent pricing.

 

How Our Loss-Damage Protection Program Works

Our Loss-Damage Protection (LDP) Program shields customers from unexpected, ad-hoc charges for lost or damaged apparel and linens. Using a percentage-based approach, it proactively covers the replacement costs for standard and non-standard garments and flats. LDP supplements our industry-leading service difference with more predictable pricing, greater product availability, and seamless inventory management.

 

Our Expert Linen Inventory Management Solutions

To further control costs, our expert inventory management solutions reduce the number of lost and damaged products from the start. We track usage through intelligent barcode scanning technology and scrub dispensing machines that can automatically bill wearers for missing garments to reduce inventory leakage. And when those unexpected needs occur, we provide free same-day special deliveries!

 

Worry Less About Loss and More About Patients – Partner With Us Today!

You can improve operations and care in your outpatient center when you partner with Nixon Medical. Our service difference is trusted by 10,000+ medical locations nationwide and growing—and our hassle-free loss-prevention policy is just one way we ensure you and your patients are taken care of.

Get started with our Loss-Damage Protection program in your facility today for predictable pricing, greater product availability, and better operations and care.

Written by Nixon Medical

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