Are You Overpaying for DME? Common Pitfalls in Senior Care Procurement

Durable Medical Equipment (DME) isn't a choice in elder care, but it is necessary. From hospital beds and wheelchairs to oxygen therapy and lift chairs, DME is essential to quality of life and clinical outcomes. But here's the catch: most long-term care and senior living centers overspend on these basics without knowing it.

Procurement teams may believe they're doing their part—comparing supplier quotes, selecting familiar vendors, or adhering to the same supply chain "because it's always worked." But under the surface, a subtle budget bleed is frequently occurring.

Let's deconstruct durable medical supplies, how they occur, and what you can do to prevent it.

Defaulting to Legacy Vendor Relationships

The most prevalent (and expensive) trap: remaining faithful to suppliers without renegotiating pricing or terms. Perhaps your staff has used the same supplier for five or ten years. Perhaps they recognize your ordering habits. That familiarity can be reassuring—but it's not necessarily cost-saving.

Contract pricing over time can creep up. A new line of products can offer more value for money, or the competition may offer the same gear at a dramatically lower price. Without market benchmarking, you may never be aware.

Solution: Review vendors every 12–18 months. Don't merely request new quotes—ask for a side-by-side comparison of your most heavily used DME categories and have them compare market rates. Better still, hire pros who can negotiate on your behalf and make vendors get real transparency.

One-Size-Fits-All Equipment Decisions

Senior care isn't one-size-fits-all—neither is your DME strategy. What's appropriate for skilled nursing won't necessarily translate to memory care or assisted living. Still, many operators purchase equipment across all buildings without considering population-specific requirements.

This results in inefficient bulk purchasing, overstocking, or buying upmarket equipment that collects dust in storage. Worse still, some teams overspend simply to meet free shipping thresholds or contract minimums.

Solution: Map your DME purchases to clinical use cases. Prioritize modular, adjustable, or multi-purpose equipment where appropriate. And avoid letting vendor incentive programs steer your actual care needs.

Neglecting Post-Warranty Costs

The initial purchase price is just one piece of the puzzle. What about servicing, repairs, or replacement parts? If your procurement process stops at the sticker price, you're leaving your future budget exposed.

Most durable medical supplies provide low purchase prices but recoup the loss through high maintenance contracts or restricted part availability, leading you to exchange costly equipment prematurely.

Solution: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) must dictate DME purchases, not price. Consider life expectancy, repairability, and part availability before purchasing. Improved contracts will define maintenance details specifically—don't sign fuzzy statements.

Lost Opportunities Through GPO Contracts

If you're not plugged into a healthcare group purchasing organization or only using one passively, you're probably missing out on deeper tier discounts and bonus rebates.

Many facilities only leverage GPOs for food or janitorial services. Still, the best GPOs have also negotiated terms with major DME suppliers, often with volume rebates, bundled pricing, and preferred delivery terms.

Solution: Access a GPO that extends beyond minimal access. Find one that assists you in actively auditing consumption, suggesting right-sized contracts, and linking you with expert vendors in the elder care universe.

Failing to Monitor Utilization or Waste

Unused or misplaced gear is one of the sneakiest drains on your finances. A hospital can overbuy DME and then have some pieces warehoused, forgotten, or idle. Multiply that across multi-site systems, and the fiscal blowout becomes huge.

Worse still: when groups don't monitor usage, they end up repeatedly reordering the same products unnecessarily, particularly if there's high turnover or inadequate inventory systems.

Solution: Have simple tagging or tracking for high-priced DME. Routine inventory audits on a quarterly or biannual basis can reveal hidden assets or even enable cross-facility sharing before new orders are placed.

Insufficient Category Expertise on Procurement Staff

Buying is an art, but DME procurement is a specialty. Too frequently, procurement is merely one of many hats an administrator or facilities manager wears. Without specialization, they're stuck taking advice from vendors, which may not be objective.

This situation causes procurement cycles to be inefficient, buys to be reactive, and opportunities to optimize spend to be lost. Even when the individual placing orders on equipment acts in good faith, they're most likely operating behind the curve in a rapidly changing vendor environment.

Solution: Hire category specialists. Either through internal recruitment or external partnership, what matters is having somebody who eats, sleeps, and breathes DME procurement. They'll identify cost trends, sidestep compatibility problems, and extract lifecycle value.

Your Expenses Are Cumulative—So Are Your Savings

For DME, each overpayment, no matter how small, adds up across your facility's budget. But so does every intelligent optimization. The secret is being proactive, not reactive.

And you don't have to go alone to it.

Work Smarter with Prime Source Expense Experts

Prime Source Expense Experts assists senior care providers in controlling their DME expense, not by simply tapping into healthcare group purchasing organizations' networks, but by analyzing where cash is seeping away, counseling on astute vendor relationships, and ensuring each equipment dollar does more for your business.

We've assisted thousands of long-term care providers in reimaging purchasing beds to nebulizers, with improved outcomes and tighter budgets.

Let's discuss your existing DME strategy. Where can we assist you in saving, without sacrificing care?

Schedule a Spend Analysis or learn more at Prime Source Expense Experts.