Hospitals May Be Sitting on Millions in Untapped Medication Cost Savings
Intelliguard's new interactive ROI tool helps U.S. and Canadian health systems quantify potential five-year savings across medication inventory, labor, waste, charge capture and supply-chain management
COLUMBUS, Ohio, September 21, 2026--Intelliguard, a leader in RFID-enabled medication inventory management, today announced the launch of its new Interactive ROI Calculator, designed to help hospital and health system leaders quickly estimate the potential five-year financial impact of improving how medications are managed across their organizations.
Intelliguard modeled multiple hospitals and health systems reflecting real-world operating profiles. To illustrate these savings, the company applied its methodology to a representative six-hospital regional health system. Grounded in published industry research and Intelliguard's operational benchmarks, including customer outcomes like a 90% reduction in tray refill times and cutting monthly medication waste from 8.5% to under 3% of encoded medicines, the analysis identified a potential $51 million five-year financial opportunity, including:
$20M in drug inventory management
$13M in 340B revenue capture
$12M in charge capture
$6M in waste reduction
An overlooked financial opportunity
Medication inventory is one of the largest and most complex areas of hospital operations, yet many health systems lack a simple way to quantify the financial impact of inventory inefficiencies.
Excess inventory ties up working capital. Medications expire before they can be used. Pharmacy teams spend valuable time on manual inventory and replenishment activities. Incomplete documentation can contribute to missed charge capture and, for eligible U.S. hospitals, unrealized 340B opportunities.
The Healthcare Financial Management Association has reported that hospitals can lose as much as 1% of net revenue to charge-capture leakage system-wide. Research published in JAMA Health Forum also found that while the share of 340B-eligible prescriptions captured by 340B pharmacies increased substantially between 2013 and 2020, covered entities were still capturing only about half of the 340B revenue for which they were eligible.
From operational inefficiencies to financial impact
"Hospital leaders are being asked to find meaningful efficiencies while continuing to manage increasingly complex medication environments," said Jeff Harper, Head of Product at Intelliguard. "The challenge is knowing where the biggest opportunities are and whether they are significant enough to act on. This tool gives pharmacy, supply chain and finance leaders a quick way to use their own data to understand where better medication inventory management could create measurable value."