A cupboard of knee braces in every size except the one you need
Your clinic keeps a cupboard of products: knee and ankle braces, back supports, wrist splints, kinesiology tape, resistance bands, foam rollers, hot and cold packs. Physios take what a patient needs during the session and hand it over. Some remember to tell reception, who add it to the bill. Some write it on a sticky note. Some forget, because the next patient is waiting.
Stock is checked when someone notices the medium ankle braces are gone. Orders go in when a physio complains. At the end of the year, the accountant asks why product purchases are far higher than product sales, and nobody has a good answer.
Loaned equipment is its own mess. Crutches, TENS machines and cold therapy units go home with patients and some never come back.
Why product sales slip through
The sale happens in the treatment room, but the till is at reception. Between the two there is a walk down a corridor, a patient who wants to pay by card on the way out, and a receptionist who does not know the physio handed over a brace.
Clinic systems, including Cliniko and TM3, have product and stock features, but many clinics never set them up fully, or set them up without sizes and variants, so a 'knee brace' in stock tells you nothing about whether a large one is available.
Physios are not retail staff and should not have to be. Anything that takes more than a moment during a session will be skipped.
What leaky stock costs
| Leak | Result |
|---|---|
| Items handed over, not billed | Lost income on stock you paid for |
| No stock by size | Wrong sizes ordered, right sizes run out |
| No low-stock warning | Patients sent away to buy elsewhere |
| Loans not tracked | Equipment never returned |
| Purchases and sales not compared | No idea where the gap comes from |
How we connect the cupboard to the bill
- Products are set up with sizes and variants, in your clinic system if it handles them properly, or in a small stock tool linked to it.
- In the treatment room, the physio adds a product to the patient's bill with one tap on a tablet or phone, or by scanning a barcode on the box.
- The item is deducted from stock by size, and appears on the patient's bill at reception, ready for payment.
- Low-stock alerts go to whoever orders, with a suggested reorder list based on recent sales.
- Loaned equipment is recorded against the patient with a return date, with reminders to return it and a list of overdue items for reception.
- A monthly report compares purchases, sales and stock, so any gap can be looked into.
Which product a patient needs is the physio's decision. The system just makes sure it is billed, counted and replaced.
What changes in the clinic
Products are billed because billing happens in the room, not on a trip to reception. The right sizes are in the cupboard. Loaned equipment comes back more often, and when it does not, you know who has it. The product line becomes something you can see and manage, rather than a cost that quietly grows.
Reception also stop playing detective. At the end of the day, what was handed over and what was paid for agree, and any difference has a name against it rather than a shrug.
Is your product cupboard like this?
- Products are handed over in sessions and billed later, if at all
- Stock is not recorded by size
- Orders are placed when something runs out
- Crutches or TENS machines have gone home and not returned
- You cannot say whether products make or lose money