Patric Merritt, MBA Sr. Director of National Accounts and Strategic Alliances at Cantel Medical spoke at the JHC’s Supply Chain Summit in August. Here are some key takeaways:
Stay on top of IDN mergers and acquisitions. “Within five to eight years, we’ll have 100 to 150 IDNs. As a national account executive, your ability to stay on top of mergers and acquisitions, especially when you have an active agreement with one IDN and then they merge with another IDN and pricing may be an issue…..it is important to have a strong back office finance team to run price comparisons and analytics on spend to stay in a safe zone with your key customers.” When you are the market leader across an entire category, you can request standardization and also provide pricing that is a win- win for the customer– Merritt
Fewer IDNs equals fewer suppliers. “As there are fewer IDNs, they’ll want fewer suppliers for a specific category. So, they’ll do a dual-source or a spend-percent commitment and say, ‘you get this, and you get that, come to the table with your best price.’ And a lot of the other companies, without a complete offering are not going to be around. That’s why you see companies continuing to acquire each other…. Those companies need to have a complete breadth of product lines across an entire category with new innovation and technology to enhance patient outcomes.” –Merritt
Merritt also spoke about supply costs surpassing labor costs as the most expensive issue in the hospital. He spoke on reimbursement concerns, cybersecurity, invoicing and payments, drug costs and the opioid crisis. Merritt works with Vizient and Intalere, as well as the top 25 IDNs under Vizient both.