What supply company do you use?

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I am trying to decide which supply company to use to make getting supplies to all of my campuses easier. Since we are a relatively small school, I was trained to just go to the store when we're low on things, such as bandaids, and hand deliver them to each of my campuses. There are several obvious problems with this route, such as poor communication with 2 of my campuses (this leads to emails that say things like "hey. we're completely out of bandaids. can you get us some more??") I've tried several different ways to get them to communicate better when they're running low on supplies but, alas, they don't use them :sarcastic: not to mention the fact the my other two campuses are over an hour away from my "home" campus. It is not a feasible thing to just drop what I'm doing to take them supplies....

Anywho, just curious to know who y'all use!

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I use School Nurse Supply Inc. for almost everything, School Health for a few things that I can't get from the other, and Amazon for Kleenex and mints!

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Specializes in School Nursing.

We use School Health for most things and then Amazon for the unique things we may need that School Health doesn't have.

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Specializes in school/military/OR/home health.

I use MacGill. My first year I made a list of what I needed and added up the total, it went over my budget by about 15%. I emailed my list to three companies (won't name the others) and asked for a quote for those supplies. MacGill was the only company that gave me a discounted price so I could get everything I needed. The other companies told me to cut my list. Lost my business forever.

I only knew to do this because my husband is a sales rep and he kept telling me to pit companies against each other. It works.

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I use School Nurse Supply Inc. for almost everything, School Health for a few things that I can't get from the other, and Amazon for Kleenex and mints!

I literally JUST got a catalogue from School Nurse Supply Inc. recently and haven't had a chance to browse through it. Did you set up an account with them? Do you have to pay for said account? Do you have anything set up on "auto-ship"? I apologize if these questions seem very elementary...this isn't something I've ever done and it will be a new thing for my school as well, plus I have to make sure it's in my budget request correctly (boy was THAT a learning curve for me this year!).

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All of my ordering goes through the office secretary, so I don't have many answers. The prices from SNS are much better than those from School Health. I don't have anything on auto-ship, but bandaids wouldn't be a bad idea! I order all of my supplies at once and then allot another $150 for additional supplies throughout the year. It's been 3 years and I'm finally getting the hang of what I actually need

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I order all of my supplies at once and then allot another $150 for additional supplies throughout the year. It's been 3 years and I'm finally getting the hang of what I actually need

Well I feel better about my lack of planning now! I've been at my school just over a year and am definitely still learning how to do everything. It's definitely a change from the hospital where every single thing you MIGHT need is already purchased and waiting for an order to be brought to you! Thank you!

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

I mostly use school health and henry schien. I think they have the state contract - or alteast something on the district level.

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Specializes in School nursing.
I use MacGill. My first year I made a list of what I needed and added up the total, it went over my budget by about 15%. I emailed my list to three companies (won't name the others) and asked for a quote for those supplies. MacGill was the only company that gave me a discounted price so I could get everything I needed. The other companies told me to cut my list. Lost my business forever.

I only knew to do this because my husband is a sales rep and he kept telling me to pit companies against each other. It works.

I also use MacGill. I had previously used School Health and MacGill was so much cheaper. Using them the last year made my budget stretch much further. I do use Amazon for some more random things, namely the test strips for my back-up glucometer. Those are much cheaper through Amazon.

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Specializes in Home Health,Dialysis, MDS, School Nurse.

I order through MacGill School Nurse Supply also. I make my list from their catalog of what I will need for the next year and turn it in at budget time. Then the office manager will order it during the summer and all my supplies are waiting for me at the start of the year. It's a learning curve since this is my 2nd year, but I kind of went by the previous nurses order and then just added in new or different things I wanted. If I run out during the year, I just turn in a PO and explain what happened (like I just turned in a PO today for another case of emisis bags because we had a major stomach flu go through this year!)

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Specializes in School Nursing, Hospice,Med-Surg.

I did hours of price comparisons when I first started and found that MacGill was my best deal on supplies unless I could just shop locally at Walmart or Sam's Club.

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Specializes in ED, School Nurse.

MacGill. I did some comparison shopping too when I first started, and MacGill was by far cheaper than the other companies. We use Quill for office supplies. I will branch out to the other school health supply companies (School Health, School Nurse Supple because MacGill doesn't carry everything I need, but it's pretty darn close).

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