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S U P P L Y C H A I N
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medical distributor.
Example of savings: A North Carolina ASC reduced its number of vendors from 20 to 3. This cut administrative and shipping costs by
several thousand dollars per year, not counting the price cuts the 3 remaining vendors gave in return for increased volume.
4. Using wasteful medical waste contracts Many medical waste disposal companies are notorious for locking customers into 5-year contracts. These contracts pile on extra, unspecified fees and let the company unilaterally raise its rates by as much as 18% per year, even when you signed a contract for a specific price.
In these cases, the fine print in the contract lets the company raise prices at any time, for any reason. If the vendor can do that, what's
the sense in even having a contract? The best way to deal with this is to point out this harmful clause and ask the company to remove it —
or you'll take your business elsewhere. Quite often, the company will accommodate your request.
Example of savings: A Tennessee surgery center saved 53% ($17,800
per year) by negotiating a new contract with its existing medical waste vendor.
5. Sending in too many purchase orders
It's not unusual to find a facility that's placing several purchase orders per day with the same vendor. This gets very pricey when you
consider that it usually costs about $100 to produce 1 purchase order. Free shipping is becoming a thing of the past. To reduce your number of orders, coordinate purchasing activities within the facility. You can
do this by implementing a simple communication system among staff
members, such as dry erase boards or logbooks, so that everyone
