How to Establish Relationships With Labs and Other Vendors

Join one or more group purchasing organization (GPO)

This is often the best and easiest way to get cash prices on medications, labs, and DME. In DPC, its common to join multiple. Groupsource or PedsPal can get you deals on medications and DME from Henry Schein. Healthcare Procurement Solutions gets you deals from Labcorp, Quest, McKesson, and Medline. Joining is free and can save you a lot of time negotiating with individual vendors.

If you choose to go this route, a lot of the todo items below are irrelevant. You'll be provided with low cash prices on labs from Labcorp/Quest, medications from Henry Schein, and DME from McKesson/Henry Schein.

If you're doing in-office dispensing: sign up with a wholesale medication distributor

If you join a GPO you'll likely be provided with cash pricing on medications from Henry Schein or something similar. If you don't join a GPO, sign up with Andameds or directly with Henry Schein.

If you're NOT doing in-office dispensing: help your patients save money at the pharmacy

Point them in the direction of Blink Health, GoodRX, Marley Drug, and NeedyMeds.

Establish a relationship with a lab

For lab/pathology work, many DPC docs negotiate prices (often low or wholesale ones) with national laboratories (LabCorp, Quest, Cedar, CPL, Life Line, etc). The lab then bills the DPC practice (not the patient) for their services. Some docs treat these labs as a benefit of membership and swallow the cost; others pass the cost through to the patient (potentially with a small markup). This can save your patients a lot of money.

Offering this service to your patients requires negotiating prices with labs upfront. In these discussions, demand similar prices to those already established by previous DPC docs.

Don't forget to also negotiate a blood draw fee, especially if you don't do draws in-office. The default fee is often high ($20) but they'll typically come down to a few bucks if you insist.

There may be legal hurdles to doing this depending on your state. For non-pathology lab services, it is illegal in New York and New Jersey (see here). For pathology services, it is illegal in many more states; see the "direct billing" states listed here.

In these states, the patient must arrange payment directly with the lab. Contact the lab to determine the best way to go about this.

Establish a relationship with an imaging center

As with labs, it is possible to negotiate low prices with imaging centers.

Establish relationships with other providers

Consider arranging prices for bariatric surgery, breast health services, digestive disease specialists, endoscopies, eye surgery, general surgery, heart and vascular specialists, kidney stone treatment, oncology specialists, orthopedic surgery, pain management, physical therapy, radiology services, sleep health centers, and spine procedures.

For your reference, price sheets for each of these categories can be found here.

eBay and Amazon

Often the lowest prices, especially more medical devices, will be on eBay and Amazon.