Negotiation Training For Healthcare Leaders

This article was written by Lisa Miller.

Successful negotiation is central to any business but especially so in the healthcare sector, which is why VIE Healthcare Consulting offers dedicated negotiation training for healthcare leaders.

All care providers, from hospitals to post-acute care organizations, must constantly negotiate with their vendors in order to secure market-competitive pricing. But negotiating cost-effective supply agreements has historically been a challenge for many healthcare organizations.

Why Negotiation Training Matters for Your Hospital

Your supply vendors and managed care companies use sophisticated strategies and commit significant resources to educate their employees in highly skilled contract negotiation.

Hospitals must learn to apply the same, or more advanced strategies and analytics during negotiations in order to minimize risk and drive margin improvement.

Improving your results by 1, 2, or 3%, can have a significant impact on your bottom line.

For example, with a 10% margin, your organization would require $10 million in new sales to realize $1 million dollars in profit, which is only 1%. In comparison, if your margin is 5%, you would need to make $20 million in new sales to achieve 1% in profits.

The challenge we frequently see at VIE Healthcare is that vendors receive extensive negotiation training to protect their margins. In health systems, this training is rare, creating an unequal playing field which can cost your hospital tens of millions of dollars.

Faced with a skilled negotiating team representing your vendors can result in an unsatisfactory outcome and your organization paying more for everyday supply items, such as advanced medical equipment.
This inevitably creates an impact on your patient care as operating margins come under increasing pressure.

One effective solution is to provide negotiation skills training to your key staff.

Building an in-house team to effectively act on your behalf in terms of analytics, strategy and negotiation strengthens your hospital’s position.

The Benefits of Negotiation Skills Training

At VIE Healthcare, we understand the challenges hospitals face in negotiating competitive pricing across their contracts and believe that all healthcare organizations should be prepared to negotiate.

My goal is to teach your organization how to achieve significant savings for your hospital.

In one example, our team of experts at VIE Healthcare saved a New York hospital $267,000 a year by negotiating a 21% reduction in a five-year service contract.

Our interactive negotiation training includes the following five essential elements:

• Role-plays of real-life negotiations to teach staff specific negotiation tactics.
• Individual and team-based “practice sessions” and role play to reinforce training principles.
• Development of key negotiation metrics to fit the specific and unique needs of your organization.
• Education on the latest innovations available in medical technologies and supplies.
• Actionable game plans to recover money lost as a result of poor negotiations.

Our comprehensive training helps your organization to develop invaluable negotiation skills and empowers your employees to hold your vendors accountable.

To learn how VIE Healthcare can provide effective negotiation training for your healthcare leaders, call our office today at 1-888-484-3332, Ext 500, or email us at info@viehealthcare.com for a complimentary consultation.