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Price Increases


Mary

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My guess is that they're trying to push their Capture technology. Notice how much cheaper the automation prices are. That's not a coincidence.

Looks like the hospitals (like us) that don't have the resources to spend six figures on automation will have no choice but to suck it up. Too bad Immucor has decided to stick it to the little guys and let the big boys with their big toys run the playground.:mad:

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I was told by my Ortho rep in January that Ortho's pricing for traditional reagents was going to increase by 100%. Fortunately I only purchase my gel products from Ortho. So I called my Immucor rep to ask her what kind of a price increase Immucor would be making for 2008. She sent me a 2008 price list with NO INCREASE. I actually met with her the end of Feb and we discussed the fact that there was no increase. So when I received the letter from Immucor with the new pricing for July, I immediately called her and told her that I expected her to find a way to honor the pricing that she had given me in Feb. She set up an appointment to meet with me next week. I don't expect that they willl honor the pricing but I figured it was worth a try.

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At this point, I would stock up on products that have good expiration dates and order heavy in June. I wouldn't expect Immucor to honor anything at this point after dropping this collective bomb on us.

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We keep a supply of Anti-C, E, c, e, K, Fya, and Jka. I recently discontinued Anti-M and Anti-S since they cost the most and got used the least. These cover the majority of our transfusion problems. Our reference lab is able to provide us with S-negative units if needed, so I ditched the Anti-S. Anti-M is usually only significant if it reacts at 37C, so crossmatch-compatible units are usually OK for patients with documented Anti-M, and I can get M-neg units from the reference lab as well, so I said bye-bye to the Anti-M.

Jka is next on my list. I hate to spend that much for something I'll mostly use only on surveys, but I'll probably keep it around just in case.

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It is my understanding that Ortho has increased prices by 100% and Immucor will follow suit in July with a 50% price increase.

I recommend that if you are considering automating with Immucor that you do so before July 1. We are in the process of ordering an ECHO and my sales rep offered that if we order the instrument prior to July 1, they'll honor our current automation price list. Purchasing the analyzer also locks us in to a reagent pricing contract that prevents Immucor from raising prices more than 15% in 5 years (or more than 5% in any 1 year). Hopefully, we'll be ordering our ECHO by the end of April...so we'll see if they honor the verbal agreement.

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We are also in the process of bringing ECHO into our lab. We asked for a reagent lease contract which takes it off the capital funding list (outright purchase was NOT an option for us, either) and the pricing over the life of the contract was actually cheaper than what we have been running over the last couple of years with our current methods.

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I would suggest investigating pricing from Alba Bioscience in Raleigh, NC and Biotest in Denville, NJ. These two companies are new to the BB marketplace but may have decent pricing for non-gel & non-solid-phase reagents.

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We are also in the process of switching to Gamma from Ortho, however we may just suck it up at this point. Our Gamma rep led us to believe the prices would be good at least until the end of the year. Obviously that was not true. I think we should stay with the devil we know and not move the unknown!

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I haven't seen Ortho's list, but there's no way I'll spend $1000 for one 5ml vial of Anti-S. That's ridiculous.

Hello, reference lab......:cool:

Of course the Reference lab will simply forward the increase as well....but at lest you won't have to pay for the positive Ag results when looking for little c.

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The price increases by both vendors (Immucor and Ortho) should have been predictable by all of us. Granted, not to the extent that they were, but . . . both these companies are on record to increase "classic" reagent prices until there is no difference between the classic and the "noveau" technologies. The 100% by Ortho and the 50% by Immucor do seem a bit steep for a one time increase.

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How do we know this is a 'one-time' increase? Is there anything stopping these companies from doing this again? Another 100% increase next year will start to affect what services some institutions, including mine, can offer. They seem to be able to increase their prices at will citing things like 'increased production costs' or 'decreased raw material' blah blah blah. Yeah, it's business, and it seems like every time we get stuck with an absurd price increase, blood banks are being given 'the business'. :mad:

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I'm afraid in the grand scheme of things in the world of healthcare blood bank reagent prices are not even on the radar. Priced a new MRI or CT machine lately?? How 'bout a new chemistry analyzer?? To be honest the price of reagents is the least of my worrys. Now, wheather or not the blood supplier can fill my next order!! Or will I find someone to replace the tech that's retiring soon. That's something to worry about.

Pick you poison.

:bonk:

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I really feel betrayed by both vendors (Immucor and Ortho) and our blood supplier to be honest. The Blood Banks and hospitals will find a way to cost shift and stay in business - it's the private payors, uninsured, and medically indigent who will take the hit. We all have blood on our hands ....

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What is happening with both Ortho and Immucor is just plain greed. What they tell us in the blood banking community and their investors in the business community are two diffferent things!!! Just have a look at what the investment world has heard from the management of Immucor (stock BLUD). It is about maximizing their profit, not about the cost of doing business or the lines your sales reps or their superiors are spouting to us. Especially now since they bought another company which made investors pancik. What did they do? You guessed it, they informed investors they were going to increase the pricing. Tehy even tell you that it really won't effect how much patients pay. DUH, because we can't pass off these new drastic price increases because of DRGs and how long it actually takes for these price increase to be fit into new price structures which normally takes years.

Talking about vendor qualification, does anyone take into account price increases by companies when evaluating it they qualify as one of your preferred vendors? Historically, if one reagent company increased their pricing like they have, I would have gone with an alternate vendor. However, since Immucor took over Gamma and that other reagent company (Bio soething) closed with their selling of some reagent lines to Immucor, their have been no other companies available to us. I am sure when Ortho started to raise prices, it was a no lose situation for Immucor to also raise prices, albeit at a slightly lower increase then Ortho, because where else could we get reagents from. Probably some collusion here and also some elimination/restriction of free trade here. I often wonder if someone one went to the Federal Trade Commision or other Federal Agency that looks at this issue whether or not they were look into this issue. Hmmm. something to think about.

Now, it looks like Immusor is also pushing people into buying their automation, by raising their prices for traditional reagents. What happens when you go to automation and they now start drastically raising their prices again. If I was to look at their price increases over the last several years I would almost certainly have this as a major concern about Immucor and to a similiar extent Ortho.

I am just glad Biotest and ALba are coming into this market, because now there will be at least some additional companies to vie for our business. Sometimes in life I can buy a BMW?audi so I go for a ford or a Hyundai which does its job effectively, especially with so many hospitals failing around me.

IMMUCOR AND ORTHO ARE YOU LISTENING???

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I really feel betrayed by both vendors (Immucor and Ortho) and our blood supplier to be honest.

Just a curious question here..(being a blood supplier myself) What has your supplier done concerning anti-sera price increase to betray you? Is this in reference to an earlier reply that I've missed?

Again.....just curious!

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