Understanding PAR Levels: What? Why? How?

Many practices and facilities struggle with the daily challenge of caring for patients and obtaining insurance payments but don't realize the importance of inventory management, both in regard to patient outcome as well as financial performance. Understanding PAR levels is the first step toward taking control of medical inventory costs and optimizing spending for your business.

PAR Levels: What Are They?

Periodic Automatic Replenishment or PAR Levels are minimum and maximum quantity limits that you set for a certain item. When the quantity approaches the minimum level, the item should be reordered. Conversely, maximum levels keep you from holding too much of an item in stock, which could expire or otherwise go to waste.

PAR Levels: Why Do We Need Them?

Without PAR levels, supply management can be haphazard and costly. Items can easily run out, leading to expensive rush ordering. What's worse, staff may try to prevent future shortages by ordering excessive amounts of product, which could go unused and eventually expire.

PAR Levels: How Do We Use Them?

Each medical office or facility is different, since each one's patient population and item usage will vary. Take a look at past usage trends, and think about what minimum and maximum levels make sense for your office, and decide what PAR levels are right for you. Remember also to think about shipping times, shipping costs, and storage space.

The typical medical office uses hundreds of different items, so tracking PAR levels manually can be difficult. But advanced inventory management software can do the heavy lifting for you. Many programs use barcode scanning to track item movement in real time. The best systems even track expiration dates and alert you when it's time to reorder. Medical inventory software like Pulse combines these tools to provide the most effective way to manage your inventory.

PAR Level Tracking in Pulse

Pulse software uses PAR levels and expiration date tracking to monitor all transactions in real time, and uses color-coding to tell you when to reorder:

It lets you create, and even let you receive purchase orders for the recommended reorder items:

Choosing the right software to help you utilize PAR Levels can bring order to the struggle of managing medical inventory and improve your practice's financial position. This helps you maintain a path of healthy growth, and lets you focus on what comes first, the care and support of your patients.

Using Pulse for Your Inventory Management

Pulse is one of the best-rated all-in-one medical inventory software in the market. The platform is tailored for practices and clinics and is trusted by over 2,000 users and +750 clinical facilities. Some of Pulse's satisfied customers include medical and dental practices, vets, surgeries, and retina specialists. 

Pulse’s main features include:

• Traceability: To keep tabs on serials, lots, and expiration dates.
• Patient Safety: To assign products to patients.
• Compliance: To create automated reports and monitor stock.
• Convenience: To purchase and manage orders all from the same unified platform.
• Analytics: To predict purchases, so you never run out of supplies. 

Other advanced capabilities that are part Pulse include:

• Par level settings with minimum and maximum stock level control.
• Billing accuracy, BI, and revenue cycle reports.
• Preference card.
• Point of sale.
• Barcode scanning.
• Tracking by doctor, patient, and department.
• Bill of materials and kit building.

Pulse is entirely cloud-based and integrates with your Practice Management and EHR software (NextGen, MDI Medical Allscripts, Advanced MD, NexTech, and many more), and with national medical supply distributors such as NDC, McKesson, Medline, Cardinal Health, Drive Medical, and Henry Schein. The software is also user-friendly, very easy to learn and use, and highly adaptable, so it can grow with your business. 

Stop wasting supplies with outdated, inflexible systems. Explore how Pulse can automate your inventory planning, purchasing, tracking, and billing.