Is Your Medical Linen Services Agreement Working for Your Outpatient Practice?
January 26, 2023 by Nixon Medical
Flexibility may not be the first word that comes to mind when considering a legally binding agreement, but it’s important to consider your agreement’s terms about things like minimum billing requirements, intervals for inventory level changes, and what’s included from a customer service perspective.
Vendor agreements for medical linen services in a healthcare facility are not only necessary but vital to operational success and patient safety. There are times, though, when patient volumes fluctuate, and the terms of a rigid service agreement can hinder both the healthcare facility and the service provider, draining resources and becoming financially impractical. The best way to avoid these increased burdens is to know the terms of your agreement and how your medical linen services vendor operates.
A no-minimum agreement for medical linen services is the most practical and beneficial approach to effectively managing inventory in an outpatient healthcare facility. Learn about the importance of no-minimum billing agreements and how we’ve earned the trust of thousands of outpatient centers nationwide through a flexible approach.
Why You Need a Service Agreement for Medical Laundry Services
Service agreements are a bit more complicated than you might realize. These agreements outline the relationship between a non-physician service provider and a healthcare facility, stating that they work together but with separate responsibilities. There is a prohibition in most states blocking unlicensed individuals from owning or profiting from medical services. A properly structured service agreement ensures that the service provider has no say in the healthcare facility’s medical decisions. The agreement enables the healthcare facility to act independently without the influence of a corporation, unlicensed business, or the pursuit of profits, essentially allowing the business relationship to exist even if the service provider is not licensed.
So, for many services provided by non-physician businesses, like medical linens, a service agreement is more than just a statement of what the service provider will do and what the facility will pay. It can be vital to the business relationship itself.
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 and designing, ensuring that it works for both parties, and finally, continued management.
Planning
The first step before signing an agreement for any service should be proper planning. For medical apparel and linen agreements, you’ll want to start by evaluating your finances, average patient volumes and trends, your medical linen and apparel usage, your facility’s storage capabilities, and all other aspects of your medical linen and laundry needs. You’ll also have to consider the culture your service provider embodies, their attitudes towards structure or adaptation, their industry experience, and their reputation.
Creating an Agreement
Once you’ve evaluated your needs and identified your ideal service provider, hash out an agreement that mitigates risk for both parties. This will lay out potential risks while allowing for flexible solutions—not rigid terms—in the instance an issue arises. When building an agreement for your medical linen services, you’ll want to include provisions for changes to the scope of service and inventory levels, duration of the agreement, and alignment of service levels, among other factors.
Management
Once the agreement is signed, and both parties are happy with the provisions, it’s essential to maintain a trustworthy relationship with your service provider through ongoing, open communication. The same commitment and responsiveness should go for the service provider—even more so. Both parties should stay engaged to ensure that medical linens arrive promptly and accurately to meet patient volumes.
Making Medical Linen Services Simpler
Nixon Medical is a leading healthcare linen and laundry provider, priding ourselves on our no-minimum service agreements which have benefited thousands of outpatient facilities time and time again.
Through the volatility of the COVID-19 pandemic, one surgery center found confidence, comfort, and financial security in our flexible approach. Before they even became a client, this center benefitted from our industry-recognized service difference when we rapidly accommodated overnight shipments for scrubs and surgical gowns.
Here’s what you can expect when you partner with Nixon Medical:
- Easy payment solutions
- No minimums required, ever
- Free deliveries for unexpected needs
- Contact-free service model
- Anytime access to route service representative
- HLAC-accredited laundering services
Nixon Medical has always prioritized making our services available and focused on meeting your needs as they change and grow. So, if you want to build a medical linen services agreement that works for you, make it simple and choose Nixon Medical. Let’s discuss your needs and how our industry experts and HLAC-accredited laundering services can meet them.
