Five ways practices leave money on the table

1. Catalog vs contract pricing — Many teams pay published list price on reorders while a group or GPO rate sits unused. Pull three months of invoices and compare to your current agreement.

2. Lab fees — Case mix and material choices matter, but fee schedules are negotiable when volume is aggregated. If you have not repriced lab in two years, you are likely behind market.

3. Software and imaging — Per-seat and per-sensor pricing often improves when bundled with a group. Renewal time is the moment to ask for a member rate rather than accepting auto-renewal.

4. Shipping and payment terms — Free freight thresholds and net terms affect cash flow as much as line-item discounts. Small changes compound monthly.

5. Set-and-forget habits — Someone on the team should own vendor relationships and re-quote major categories annually. A buying group reduces that workload by pre-negotiating baseline programs.