COVER STORY
Need to Know: • As they increasingly focus on patient care, practitioners have become more comfortable with the idea of letting skilled technicians take over fabrication tasks. • C-fabs service a wide array of clients and must be knowledgeable about the latest technological innovations. • Local startups can be a challenge to larger c-fabs, and they may find it hard to compete on pricing and turnaround time. Quality, certifications, and device extended warranties can be differentiators. • To mitigate fabrication consistency issues, some c-fabs have initiated communication and collaboration tools to ensure clinicians’ satisfaction with final products. • Monitoring collections and finding ways to work with past-due customers will be important strategies for long-term success in a tight market.
C
ENTRAL FABRICATION HAS BECOME an integral part of O&P
patient care over the past several decades. As the O&P industry has evolved, the job of the O&P clinician has shifted, requiring more focus on patient evaluation and fitting and less of a need to be the individual who makes the orthotic or prosthetic device. Though some O&P facilities choose to keep fabrication in house, research has shown that up to 90 percent use central fabrication facilities (c-fabs) for some portion of their fabrication needs, according to a report by Fillauer President and COO Dennis Williams, CO, BOCO. When central fabrication facilities first opened, it took some time for many orthotists and prosthetists to buy into the idea of outsourcing fabrication. “People were used to doing their work in the back of their facilities—they were used to a close connection with and control over the
fabrication process,” says Loretta Sheldon, director of business development and education for Cascade Dafo Inc. “It was a challenge for people to learn how to hand it off.” But practitioners Loretta Sheldon today have become more comfortable with the idea of letting skilled technicians—in house or at c-fabs— take over many of the fabrication tasks. Sheldon believes more O&P clinicians will embrace central fabrication now that new practitioners have master’s level education, and clinicians are being pressured to see more patients to increase profit margins. “For clinicians, the best use of their time to grow their businesses is not doing their own fabrication—it’s seeing patients,” she says. “So there’s been more acceptance of c-fabs to achieve this goal.” O&P ALMANAC | JUNE 2015
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