Dispex Gazette: When did ordering get so complicated?

Many Dispensing Doctors are worried about purchasing margins. Whether it’s price volatility, wholesaler out-of-stocks, or missed discounts, there’s often a feeling you could have done more. As budgets tighten across practices, your medicine ordering is the one place where you know that there is a lever to potentially improve and protect your profit.

And there are a lot of tempting potential different options that might help:

“Why not just keep adding more suppliers? Or spend more time searching for and comparing prices. And resend the out-of-stock lines for a 4^th time today!”

Can all of these work? Potentially, if you have the time and patience.

Do they make your life or ordering easier? Definitely not.

For one thing – prices change every day.

As Ali from Downton Surgery (now an e-CASS user) points out – manually looking for cheaper prices isn’t efficient - " It's not practical to look for the cheapest deal for aspirin every morning at 6 different wholesalers."

Doing that made Ali’s process when he was ordering, feel chaotic:

"The extra confusing part was always the rebate model and price tiers from suppliers – we didn’t really understand the true price that we're getting,"

With the delay in reimbursement payments from the NHS, piles of delivery notes and invoices over email, price movements and concessions – it’s easy for practices to feel lost in understanding whether they are dispensing at a profit or a loss. All in all – there are just too many things for practices to think about – and too many ways it can go wrong.

Edward Down, from Caythorpe & Ancaster Medical Practice recalls one costly mishap – “Before we used e-CASS, there wasn’t any mechanism to block expensive orders. We once ended up losing £500 on one order. That’s the cost of a nurse locum for a day.”

And with the amount of changes going on every day, and given ordering isn’t everyone's 1^st priority, it’s no surprise mistake are made:

"Even the best dispensary manager in the world will get some decisions about where to buy things from wrong.”

And so this is why Dispex recommend using e-CASS to its members, because e-CASS gives you full control and visibility across all of your ordering, ensuring you make the right and most profitable purchasing decision every time you order.

e‑CASS gives you access to clear net pricing and reimbursement across your suppliers, automatic blocking of over‑tariff products, stock status on a single page, and detailed monthly purchasing profit reports. Most importantly, it’s bespoke to every surgery: you see your prices based on your tiers, your chosen suppliers, and the depot that serves you. If you need to restrict lines, block suppliers or approve orders, it’s all configurable.

And as a result of e-CASS partnering with Dispex you can take advantage of both the time saving and efficiency of e-CASS alongside the commercial advice on dispensing from Philip.

Dispex and e-CASS members can now preload ordering templates. They take account of which wholesalers you chose and the best commercial offerings and MDS schemes you have signed up to - ensuring you always buy product from the right wholesaler to ensure the best price.

It means dispensing teams like Ali’s can still deal with all the complications of the market, without all the admin:

“The paperwork and admin of how we worked before –searching through multiple supplier portals, took so much time every day. It’s 60 minutes we didn’t have to look for out of stock or cheaper medicine.”

"The cascade system solves all of that immediately within seconds." 

With easy to build order pads, quick single line orders, automatic over-tariff blocking and clear pricing – we’re excited that Dispex is helping us show e-CASS to more practices. We know it can simplify ordering, giving you greater control over your buying.

If you want to chat to one of our expert dispensing doctor team about what your setup on e-CASS could look like – just book a demo.