Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams, senior editor at MGMA, host of the MGMA Podcast Network. We're back today with another business insights and business solutions podcast at MGMA, and we're really excited to welcome Casey Benefield and Christy Farrow to the show. I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about the two of them. Casey is senior director of national account sales at MGMA BestPrice.

And Casey focuses on association channel sales leads and new business growth. Christie is the director of channel partnerships. She serves as the liaison between the HealthTrust GPO and large associations and organizations throughout The United States to support their members. Casey, Christy, first of all, I just want to welcome you all to the show.

Thank you. We're happy to be here.

Yeah, and we are really excited. I know that we've had you all on the show before, the organization. And it's great to share in the partnerships that we have at MGMA, and MGMA BestPrice is a great example of that. So let's talk about that. Let's define it.

What is MGMA BestPrice And let's talk about what those benefits are. Who wants to kick us off first?

Well, I'll go ahead and take the lead on

this. Okay.

So MGMA BestPrice is exclusive group purchasing organization, or GPO, for MGMA members. So it leverages contract portfolios for the nation's most powerful GPO, Health Trust. MGMA BestPrice provides medical practices with the industry's best pricing on medical, surgical, pharmaceuticals, and purchase services. In fact, they're the only GPO among the top three in the nation that's owned and operated by seven health care systems.

Okay. So let's back up even one more step. Christy, I'll stay with you if you want to take this next one. But perhaps not every one of our listeners knows what a GPO or group purchasing organization is. So let's talk about that.

Let's define that for our listeners.

Absolutely. We get that a lot. A group purchasing organization or a GPO leverages its members' collective buying power to enhance purchasing efficiency and negotiate better terms. For example, a medical practice manager could save thousands annually on essentials like gloves, syringes, and pharmaceuticals through a GPF, freeing up resources to improve patient care and operations.

All right. Casey, I want to bring you into the conversation as well. So let's define this for our MGMA listeners. Our listeners are made up of medical practice leaders, they're decision makers. The title maybe, you know, it's not tied to a particular title, it's tied to those people making decisions in their organizations.

So when we talk about MGMA BestPrice, who's a good fit? And does it work for both those independent provider offices and those larger groups as well who all make up our MGMA membership?

Yeah. That's a great question. Absolutely. It works for both the independent providers and the larger groups. NGMA BestPrice benefits healthcare providers of all sizes from the independent groups like I mentioned to larger groups, more locations, ambulatory surgery centers, long term care even and so on.

Smaller offices gain access to the same competitive pricing they may not get on their own as our larger groups to help streamline procurement and drive significant savings. So it's a flexible solution for really any healthcare provider looking to lower cost and operate more efficiently. And just to add to what Christy said earlier, independent providers really see the biggest percentage savings and impact because they gain access to the same pricing and contract tiers that our health systems and integrated delivery network or IDN partners receive too. So the GPO buying power really drives huge value to the independent practices and ambulatory space who maybe don't have the time or the resources or the volume to negotiate on every contract or every vendor. Right?

So

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Casey. Let's break this down and shift gears just a little bit, get into those membership details. So let's just get to the bottom line. Is there a cost to join MGMA Best Price?

What is that?

So I'm glad you asked, Daniel. Joining MGMA BestPrice is absolutely free. There's no membership fees or upfront costs that exist. Healthcare providers gain access to exclusive discounts and resources, allowing them to save on essential products and services without any risks. So it literally takes two minutes to sign up, and a member of our account management team will reach out to you.

Okay. Christie, let's stay with you then. I heard I got a light bulb moment. You talked about products and services. So what are the products and services members can access through MGMA BestPrice ?

So this is probably my favorite thing to talk about. MGMA BestPrice members access discounts on medical supplies, which is the big one that everybody thinks about. Pharmaceuticals, surgical equipment, office supplies, IT products, travel services, shipping, shredding, rental cars, and so much more. These things help providers reduce costs and improve efficiency. This also includes negotiated pricing for all kinds of clinical equipment like diagnostic imaging, survey equipment, and even nursing and laboratory gear.

So there are lots of savings opportunities by belonging to MGMA BestPrice .

Okay. You've got that right. There certainly are. And, Casey, I want to turn it back to you. You talked about it was a good fit for lots of different sizes of practices, but let's get into those specialties and other areas in healthcare.

What are examples of groups then that are using your GPO?

Yeah, absolutely. So primary care practice, so general practice, internal med, family practice, women's health, etc. So primary care is great. Great fit always. The contract portfolio lines up perfectly there.

Specialty care as well. So urology, I'm thinking cardiology, dermatology, orthopedics, podiatry. Very robust contract portfolio for those specialties as well and more specialized care. Surgery centers I mentioned earlier. So we do a ton with ambulatory surgery centers as we continue to see the shift of care to the surgery center setting.

You know this continues to grow and evolve our portfolio too. Long term care, home health, skilled nursing, you know we have members in that space as well and even federally qualified health centers or non profit organizations. That's kind of growing and popular within the portfolio too. So really you know about any primary care practice specialty care, have a wide range of contracts that can benefit just about any specialty And in fact, MGMA BestPrice now services over 4,500 MGMA members today and continues to grow, each year.

Wow. That's a lot. Let's go further in to the benefits and savings side of this. Casey, let's stay with you for this question. Talk about, I don't know, an example that you might want to share about a medical practice where they might save by joining?

Where are some of those areas where they can look to save?

Yeah. So by joining MGMA BestPrice , medical practices can save up to 20% on their medical supplies and purchase service expense. For example, we work with the all the largest national distributors, on our program. So that being McKesson, Medline, Henry Schein, Cardinal, and more. On the medical supply side, we are the intermediary between the vendor community community, excuse me, and the distributor partners.

So I do wanna clarify a lot of practices sometimes are asked if they're with the GPO today or if they have one. And sometimes they'll cite their distributor name. Sometimes they don't know if they are. But when you belong to a GPO, we contract with all the distributors, all the vendors and negotiate the discounted pricing on the member's behalf. So you can then utilize multiple distributors, multiple vendors to obtain the products you need and also drive that savings.

So if you belong to MGMA BestPrice , there's no change to the ordering process or your workflow at all on that or even the distributor reps by the way. You have those great local relationships that won't change as you know, with the suppliers that I just mentioned as well. Once you join our implementation team, onboarding team, they ensure the correct contracts, pricing, and tiers are loaded and updated throughout the vendor and distributor community to ensure members gain access to our lower pricing right from the start. We also have a lot of great contract opportunities, like Christy mentioned, in our non medical, our non clinical, our purchase service areas as well. I know MGMA recently conducted a member survey noting that members are interested in accessing better contracts and pricing in this space too, so I wanted to mention it.

But MGMA BestPrice offers contract pricing on all of these categories we're talking about. Christy alluded to it earlier but again office supplies, waste management, instrument repair, medical gases, laundry and linen, IT, freight, furniture, travel programs, advisory solutions, you name it. We likely have a contract for it and can kinda consult with you on that to drive the most value and savings. And in fact, we have over 85% of the vendors on contract that a typical practice manager or administrator would want access to or require access to do their job.

Okay. Now Christy, you have maybe some personal experience here, right?

Absolutely. I can attest to that fact. I was a practice manager for a large healthcare system over multiple specialties, and there were contracts I had negotiated on my own that were part of MGMA BestPrice that I learned later, and I could have been utilizing those contracts instead of negotiating them on my own, and then being subjected to annual rate hikes, which happened pretty much every year. My pricing was not locked in as the pricing is with MGMA best price contracts.

Okay. Thanks for that personal experience. That's always helpful to share that. So, Casey, I wanna direct this next question back to you. What is unique then about MGMA BestPrice ?

What's a differentiator between it and maybe some of the competitors out there?

Yeah. So MGMA BestPrice utilizes the HealthTrust contract portfolio, and HealthTrust leverages the collective buying power of all of its members, both large and small, to negotiate these exclusive discounts for MGMA BestPrice members. So we can offer our members better pricing than the members could typically secure on their own. We are a committed model, meaning we're your one and only GPO. Whether you're a large hospital or a small provider office, you can get access to the same pricing that our larger systems do ensuring they receive the most competitive rates regardless of the size or spend as we mentioned earlier.

MGMA BestPrice is the only GPO among the top three in the nation that's owned and operated by seven healthcare systems directly. I think Christy mentioned that as well. So the program is really run by people who are deeply involved in patient care and know exactly what you need from an organizational or operational perspective. And lastly I just say the biggest difference between MGMA BestPrice and our national GPO competitors is we believe that the committed and sole model brings the best value and the value being the right quality of products and services, the best possible price and financial value of course, the best contract terms and conditions to protect members. So we see ever changing landscape in healthcare right And also lastly maximizing the utilization of the GPO contract portfolio in all the buckets not just the med surge, med supply, pharmacy that we're kind of talking about but all these other categories we mentioned as well.

So many of our, excuse me, contract categories may have one or two or three suppliers, but these are the market leaders in that product category, in that space, the same vendors that members know and trust every day for orders, And our volume commitment to them at the GPO level brings lower contracted pricing than our competitors, which again we've seen be up to 20% for association for for MGMT members.

Okay. Thank you so much for that. Now let's do a little bit of a hypothetical here. Let's say I'm one of the MGMA listeners right now. I'm leading a medical practice.

I want to make sure that my practice will save before signing up. What do I do? How can I make sure that MGMA BestPrice is the best fit in that scenario? What's that upfront kind of work that a practice leader can be doing?

Yeah. Absolutely. And we we suggest, you know, a complimentary cost analysis before joining or enrolling it, of course. If you're curious about how much your organization could be saving in a general sense, MGMA does offer the BestPrice tool on the website that compares your cost with industry standards as a benchmark. So you can plug in your most recent twelve month supply expense into the MGMA BestPrice Calculator and it will give you an expected dollar savings based on all of our analysis and work that we've done with you all.

We also offer a complimentary cost analysis that compare actual purchases with our contracted pricing. So for those listening, if you can gather twelve months of purchase supply, you know, purchase supply list or report from your internal system, from your distributors, you know, you could provide that for us to review. Our financial analyst team will review the file and provide back a full analysis that I like it highlights two things really, the exact match savings. So no change at all to what you do apples to apples, same things you're ordering today. What are they on with the GPO and what is the savings?

And then also an opportunity for conversion savings as well. So not apples to apples, but maybe gala apples to Fuji apples for example. So similar product, right, but driving the most value from what we do at the gpo level. And so I really love that. You can kind of see compared the exact match savings versus the full opportunity savings.

So if you're on the fence or you're on another gpo today and want to quantify that, we can certainly work with you to see if the program is in fact the best fit for your organization.

Absolutely. And you also made me hungry there. I need an apple. Lunch is coming up here. Couple couple more thoughts here then.

Let's talk about the level of customer service. I know that my audience here heard me talk about trying to purchase a smartphone recently, and customer service wasn't great. So let's talk about MGMA BestPrice customer service. What can a practice leader expect there?

So those who sign up for MGMA BestPrice will have a dedicated account manager who will ensure a seamless process throughout the member journey. So and and and they answer any questions that arise. So not only before implementation, but but long thereafter to continue to be a partner with with them. So there's no disruptions again to the way that, you know, members order, keep the same distributors, the same reps, same ordering platform, you name it. So that that account manager will work with the member and also the distributor reps to update pricing on the back end.

It's really that easy. If a medical practice has questions or wants to add additional contracts, they just need to speak with their dedicated account manager. We're here to provide a high level of service guiding members every step of the way throughout the process. Again, through the whole member journey to make sure we're operational and business partner with them.

Alright, y'all. We are getting to the end of this particular interview, and I just there's been so much information that's been covered here. Casey, I want to come back to you one more time and let's really look at and focus on what kind of medical practices can benefit from MGMA BestPrice .

Yeah. And and good call out. I just wanna reiterate too. So GPOs in general and MGMA BestPrice certainly can benefit health care providers of any size, and and any spend. Right?

So from hospitals, IDNs, know down to the ambulatory and non acute market, independent provider offices, multi location groups, ASCs, long term care, you name it. Really we have a solution and a contract portfolio that supports all of these areas, including the specialty care that I mentioned earlier with you know dermatology, cardiology, urology, you name it. Smaller offices gain access to the same competitive pricing that our hospitals and health systems do, And so our buying power really drives the most value and a lot of value in this non acute space that again sometimes they don't get the competitive pricing on their own or maybe don't have the time or resources to continually negotiate every contract and every vendor. So again just want to reiterate you know, MGMA BestPrice is a flexible solution for really any healthcare provider setting, any specialty, any class of trade. We're here to help you operate more efficiently, contain costs, lower cost and you know we're excited to work with you and hopefully work with members on cost analysis.

And just want to say again to you know, each month, each year we've added so many new sites. MGMA BestPrice now has over 4,500 MGMA members, that work with the BestPrice program and the team that we work with here. So so thankful for, and and we're so excited to continue to grow.

Yeah. That's a great summary. I appreciate that. Christy, I wanna bring your voice back into this. We love success stories on the MGMA podcast.

Share how a member organization has used MGMA BestPrice to achieve significant savings or any savings at all. Help help shed a light on that for us.

Yeah. So like Casey said, we're over 4,500 members currently with MGMA BestPrice . So last year alone, MGMA BestPrice saved its 400 over 4,500 members more than $25.3 million. That's savings for 2025 alone. That's just great.

Wow. I love that. I love that success story. Thank you so much for sharing it. We had talked about that offline, and it kind of gave me chill bumps.

So I love anything we can do to help our MGMA members. I'm all for that. Thank you so much. Final thing then, Christy, for anyone listening right now, help us, and direct us to how they can sign up for MGMA BestPrice . How do they do that?

Where do they go?

Yeah. So like I said before, it's so easy to sign up. It literally takes two minutes. So go to mgmabestprice.org. Fill out your name and contact information, and then an MGMA BestPrice account manager will reach out to you to ensure a seamless process and answer any questions that may arise.

Or you can call (844) 234-6462. So if you want a cost study analysis, go ahead and visit mgmabestprice.org. You can enroll and then request a cost study analysis when that account manager reaches out to you. If you're not the decision maker, please share this podcast with the person who is and evaluate a committed GPO model like MGMA BestPrice today. Our links and information will probably also be in the show notes.

They absolutely will. Casey, Christy, thank you so much for joining us on the MGMA podcast today.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks for having us, Daniel.

Alright. Well, everyone listening, we will share this information with you in the episode show notes, and we're gonna provide an article. We'll have a YouTube video, and we'll have the regular audio podcast as well as well as video clips for you. And look for all these resources and links. And everybody listening, thank you so much for being MGMA members and for listening to the MGMA podcast.