How NikoHealth turned shipping into a growth driver and landed healthcare’s biggest players with Shippo
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Challenge
For HME/DME providers, shipping is never one-size-fits-all. Some need multi-carrier options. Others require custom return-label rates. Large healthcare organizations bring strict compliance requirements and legacy processes. And across all customers, orders must arrive quickly with reliable tracking to ensure patients receive care without delay.
Most platforms force providers into rigid, manual workflows: logging into separate carrier portals, creating labels outside the billing system, and managing returns with no integration. For new NikoHealth customers, the lack of a built-in shipping option was a consistent onboarding roadblock.
“We’d get the same question almost every onboarding call: How do we do our shipping labels?” said Andrew Polk, Solutions Consultant at NikoHealth. “With other systems, customers had to go somewhere else entirely, and that disconnected workflow slowed them down. But we were able to say, ‘We’ve got Shippo built right in.’”
Trying to build and maintain a multi-carrier shipping stack internally would have pulled NikoHealth’s engineering team away from its core product. They needed a partner who could deliver security, flexibility, and reliability—without requiring them to reinvent the wheel.
Solution
Rather than building shipping tools from scratch, NikoHealth integrated Shippo’s API directly — giving them a shipping platform that adapts to every customer’s needs.
“Shippo was incredibly easy to integrate. When we needed to make changes, their team was responsive, clear, and fast, and implementation was straightforward,” said Andrew.
Shippo is also uniquely suited for healthcare, where both security and responsiveness are critical. It offers:
- Enterprise-grade security and compliance that meet the strict privacy and data protection standards required by health systems
- Hands-on account management that helps NikoHealth respond quickly when providers need adjustments, keeping customers supported without slowing down the core team
And together, NikoHealth and Shippo can quickly tailor workflows to fit each customer’s needs — whether that’s:
- A specialized carrier setup
- Custom return-label rates
- Unique service requirements
That adaptability shows up in daily workflows too, letting providers:
- Generate labels from multiple carriers directly within NikoHealth
- Compare rates in real time to find the best option
- Provide automatic tracking updates without extra steps
- Create custom return workflows, like different outbound and return rates for FedEx
“With Shippo, we can take on the biggest, most complex customers without having to rebuild our shipping stack every time. A couple of tweaks, and we’re up and running, no matter how specific their process is. That’s huge for our growth.”
— Andrew Polk, Solutions Consultant, NikoHealth
Results
Faster implementations tailored to each customer
NikoHealth and Shippo work together to quickly tailor shipping workflows to fit each customer’s needs—whether that’s a specialized carrier setup, custom return-label rates, or unique service requirements. In one case, a FedEx return-label rate change was implemented in just days. That speed and adaptability are critical for winning larger, more complex organizations.
8-10 hours saved weekly in training and onboarding
With Shippo embedded directly into NikoHealth, new customers no longer have to learn a separate shipping platform. Label creation happens automatically in the NikoHealth order flow—eliminating extra logins, manual label creation, and redundant training.
“We’re saving at least 8 to 10 hours a week in training and manual work across hundreds of customers,” said Andrew. “With Shippo API, it’s just handled.”
Equipped to win and support the largest organizations in healthcare
NikoHealth is now onboarding one of the largest healthcare organizations in the country — a team with strict security requirements, a deeply entrenched legacy process, and an entire department depending on it. Winning a customer like this isn’t just about closing the deal; it requires the flexibility to tailor shipping around existing workflows, while still meeting the highest compliance and reliability standards.
That’s exactly where Shippo delivers. With compliance built to meet healthcare privacy standards and hands-on account management that works alongside NikoHealth, the team has the confidence and resources to adapt quickly, set large customers up for success, and keep them running smoothly. For many providers, shipping at this scale is usually a roadblock. But with Shippo, NikoHealth has turned it into a competitive advantage.
“They’d been using the same setup for years,” said Andrew. “With Shippo, we didn’t have to build something totally new just for them. We made a couple of adjustments, and now we can handle all the little nuances this huge organization throws at us. Having Shippo as a partner means we can now land the biggest organizations in our industry, help them succeed, and keep them running smoothly without overcomplicating things.”
Scaling faster by offering Shippo as a built-in partner
Shippo’s team works alongside NikoHealth’s customers to answer shipping questions, troubleshoot issues, and provide expert guidance. Shippo also provides customers with direct access to shipping expertise — documentation, technical resources, and responsive support — so NikoHealth doesn’t have to own every shipping-related issue in-house. That allows the team to stay focused on the core platform while ensuring providers are supported.
“We trust Shippo to handle anything we throw at it, which frees us up to focus on building out our business and supporting our customers, instead of reinventing shipping.”
— Andrew Polk, Solutions Consultant, NikoHealth