In these audiograms, taken from Episode 22 of The Healthcare Leadership Experience, Lisa Miller discusses the challenges hospitals face in vendor negotiations with her producer, Lisa Larter, and Rich Dormer and Bryan Covert from the VIE Healthcare team to discuss

Being Successful Vendor Negotiations

Successful Vendor Negotiations Are About the Strategy

When we present revised pricing and a new strategy for a hospital contract, our goal is to make our clients feel comfortable. We move them from a position of ‘’no way can we ask for that price’’ to being on board with our recommendations. Successful negotiation is all about the data and the strategy.

You Need To Take the Emotion Out of High Stakes Vendor Negotiations

Vendors will use GPOs as a ceiling or physician preference as obstacles to accepting your proposals. To succeed, hospitals need to take the emotion of negotiations. Preparation, data, and a complete negotiation strategy is key. If you’re involved in a high stakes negotiation, whether that’s six figures or millions of dollars, you need a coach, a specialist who understands the vendors and is capable of getting the best deal for your hospital. 

Hospital Employees Build Relationships With Vendors

When you outsource a service in your hospital, your vendors become like co-workers to your employees. They rely on them every day. Now your job is to try and eliminate costs out of their agreement that will affect bonuses and their ability to make pay raises. That’s a tough conversation. There’s a tremendous amount of value in respecting everyone involved as you enter into vendor negotiations.  

Vendors Are Highly Trained, Highly Skilled Negotiators

Your employees are negotiating with professionals who are trained several times a year. Hospitals must employ maximum resources to gain an advantage in contract negotiation. That means learning to apply the same, or more advanced, strategies to minimize risk. Learning effective negotiation skills can help to dramatically improve your operating margins.