It always amazes me how practice business software is often considered just another expense, like a lease on a copier or a courier fee. Yet, it can add huge value to the practice's operations and profitability. One way to look at it is by comparing it to everyday relative costs. A room at OR Tambo Airport, City Lodge costs R2600! It's not difficult to spend R2000 on a trolley of groceries at any supermarket for your weekly shop. Just the other night, at a country restaurant in Johannesburg, I paid a bill of R1700 for a pizza and wine dinner for five. A domestic airfare for one can easily exceed the cost of Humint’s monthly fee, depending on the travel date.
The decision to buy Humint should never be preoccupied with the monthly fee. If used properly, the return will be exponential.
Let’s look at the underlying truth
Humint Optima option is priced at R2729 per month.
Let’s assume an average invoice of R3500 (representing the average turnover for each patient).
- At two patients per day, this equates to a turnover of R182 000 per month
- At four patients per day, this equates to a turnover of R365 000 per month
- At 8 patients per day, this equates to R728 000 per month
- If you only see nine patients per week, Humint will only cost 2% of turnover
- If you see four patients per day, Humint will only cost 0,75% of turnover
- If you see eight patients per day, Humint will only cost 0,4% of turnover
To put this into perspective, the industry benchmarks (depending on mode of practice) for:
- Rent is 15% of turnover
- Salaries 22% of turnover
- Remakes – 2% of turnover
American research (AI) has shown that one of the top considerations for selecting a software package is the availability of a backup service. Backup service requires human resources, which costs money. It is unrealistic to expect excellent backup service whilst demanding a rock-bottom fee for the software. Another way to look at it is to compare the value your top employee brings to the business with what your software package brings. I say, your software should at least have the same monthly value as your top employee’s salary, but it probably contributes more value.
Let me dig a bit deeper to justify the added value of Humint online software for optometry.
As an online system, there is no need for expensive servers and network cables. It works on any device with a browser. The software is hosted in the Cloud. Backups are done automatically on your behalf every hour. There is no need for hardware maintenance agreements.
Humint (Enterprise) features an integrated accounting module that eliminates the need for a separate accounting package, resulting in cost savings. This saves hours of capturing invoices.
Financial reports will red-flag issues that can affect the net profit. These problems can be addressed immediately before becoming chronic leaks over time, eroding the net profit.
Overall financial management, with the Mini Income Statement, becomes a breeze and will maximise profits.
The Medi Switch module enables real-time medical aid payments, which significantly improves cash flow and eliminates the need for staff to spend time on the phone obtaining confirmations.
The paperless online patient records save time and money because they eliminate the need to re-write data in the dispensing, ordering, and lab departments. Once the optometrist or dispenser has entered the Rx and instructions, it just travels down the line. No more mistakes with re-capturing. Finding a patient record becomes instant. No more manually pulling patient records and then filing them again. No more cabinets taking up space required for paper records.
Job tracking is another excellent plus. Eliminate space-hogging trays and replace them with a digital Kanban view of jobs at every stage. Drag and drop jobs as they move through the production process, while automating patient communication through SMS and email. A big saving of labour hours.
Multiple locations – Humint can operate multiple branches from the same instance, making it ideal for a multi-practice owner. Log in once and access all your practices from a single interface.
Stock control – an advanced inventory module allows for barcoded stock takes. Multi-practice instances can leverage shared stock databases, enabling easy interbranch transfers without the need for re-barcoding. Shared stock databases also allow for cross-branch inventory management.
Humint has a highly sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy to manage interactions with customers and potential customers. CRM helps streamline processes, build customer relationships, increase sales, enhance customer service, and boost profitability. This alone is worth more than your monthly fee for Humint. No need for a monthly fee to an outside social media marketer.
Automated recall is another big plus. A big time saver. To boot, the personalised recall is a killer system.
Humint will have a profound effect on your human resource requirements. It enables personnel to be redeployed and improves service levels.
Introducing Humint will have a significant impact on financial security, increasing turnover, reducing expenses, eliminating costly mistakes, and enhancing profitability. Humint will add more Rand value than any other piece of equipment in your practice and probably more than what you pay your top employee. The gross profit of one or two patients per month could cover the cost, or, put differently, you can have it for less than R100 per day.
In multiple locations, it becomes easy to establish benchmarks across the Group, such as average invoice value, rent as a percentage of turnover, monthly turnover, and net profit percentage, among others. This way, Group benchmarks can be established. These reports are at your fingertips.
Humint Cost Saver
This is how Humint will save you money:
- No initial fee
- No installation fee
- No training fee
- No data migration fee
- No servers and network cables
- No maintenance agreement on hardware/servers
- Effective recall – one extra per month justifies the monthly fee
- Medical Aid Switching verification – cash flow
- Digital marketing: no outside agreement cost
- Website – no hosting fee
- Patient communication with WhatsApp – no cost
- Illuminates mistakes as information is passed along electronically
- Social media management – no cost
- No extra accounting package fee
- Overall time saving -labour cost
- Net profit management and protection
- Cost of keeping paper records