Cost Saving Solutions for Community Health Centers

A New GPO Preserving 20 Years of Health Center Service

WHO WE ARE

The Delta Purchasing Alliance (DPA) is the only national purchasing alliance owned and operated by community health centers. Founded in 2015, the DPA is named in honor of the pioneering health centers founded in the mid-1960s in the Mississippi Delta.

The DPA offers community health centers significant cost savings on their most common supply, service and equipment needs including medical and dental supplies and equipment, office supplies, patient translation services and call center services. The DPA’s founding members include some of the leading community health centers in the United States.

In just a few short years, the DPA has grown to include members located throughout the country, and we are achieving for our members millions of dollars in annual cost savings. In addition, we offer unique peer-to-peer networking opportunities so our members can learn from each other best practices in supply chain and procurement.

Benefits

Financial Impact: $5000-20,000 per month*
Service: Highest-level visibility and customer care by national distribution partners
GPO: Enrollment in the largest national healthcare GPO with contract benefits built on volume
Expertise: Let us help you identify purchasing trends and unlock savings
Networking: We’re more than just a savings program! We offer multiple opportunities for our members to network and share supply chain and procurement best practices.

How it works

The Delta Purchasing Alliance (DPA) builds on the benefits offered by group purchasing organizations (GPO). For example:

We Address Distributor Mark-Up. Prices negotiated by GPOs are generally “marked-up” by supply distributors to cover their costs for warehousing and shipping supplies. This “mark-up” is variable and can significantly increase the price that health centers pay for supplies and equipment. The DPA’s approach makes use of the axiom that there is “strength in numbers.” By working together as a group and channeling our members’ purchasing into a single distribution channel for medical supplies and equipment, the DPA has been able to reach agreement with distributors to contractually reduce and limit their “mark-up,” thus achieving incredible cost savings without mandating that health centers change their individual product preferences.

We Leverage Compliance to Achieve Further Cost Savings. The companies that sell the supplies, equipment and services your health center needs are always willing to lower their prices if they can be guaranteed a certain amount of volume or revenue. The DPA has been able to access GPO discount tiers generally not available to individual health centers by negotiating “win/win” agreements with suppliers and product manufacturers. Our vendor and supplier partners provide the DPA access to enhanced discounting because we can drive volume to their businesses and we honor reasonable compliance commitments such as agreeing to pay our invoices within thirty days.

Because the DPA is health center-owned and operated, our entire focus is on FQHCs and addressing their procurement needs. We listen to our health center members and we are constantly developing new programs and savings opportunities to enable you to advance your health care mission.