Sometimes there aren’t any competitive options for specialty medical and lab equipment. Suppliers are often trained to scoff at “inferior” alternatives, and assume you’ll buy from them regardless of price. What do you do?
Can’t Get a Competitive Bid? Consider Used
Create competition by introducing a used version of the same product. Many doctors prefer brand new equipment. But in the absence of a viable competitive product, a pre-owned version of the equipment is the next best way to introduce competitive pressure. This way you still have two suppliers and reps competing for your business, and you can leverage both to get the best value and the equipment your doctors want.
Here’s a recent example. A hospital needed more patient monitors for a bed expansion project. The supplier knew the hospital had to buy their monitors in order to be compatible with existing hospital infrastructure. The price quoted to the hospital was 19% higher than they had paid 7 months earlier. Despite the supplier insisting they couldn’t discount further, the hospital didn’t accept the higher price and considered a pre-owned option from a different supplier, and for 60% less. Once the hospital had a legitimate alternative, the supplier of new monitors suddenly “discovered a special promotion” that cut the price by 13.5%, saving the hospital $51,000 and enabling them to fit the new monitors into the budget for the expansion project.
Miga Solutions provides the most accurate and actionable pricing information, enabling hospitals to lower their medical equipment total cost of ownership (TCO) by 12-16%. To learn more about how your hospital can save, contact us.
