A GPO is a group purchasing organization in which practitioners pool their collective buying power to exert influence on manufacturers and distributors to negotiate cost-savings opportunities on goods and services. These range from consumable dental supplies to implants, dental lab services, insurance rates, and potentially even front- and back-office “nonclinical services.”
Unlike dental support organizations (DSO) or corporate dental groups, GPOs take no ownership of or stake in a practice and, therefore, do not have any influence on a practice’s clinical decisions or operations. A GPO is a tool that both practitioners and practice owners can use to level the playing field with the DSOs and corporate dental groups. The primary benefit of a GPO is that practitioners gain the negotiating power of several hundred to several thousand practices instead of negotiating as one or two doctors or offices.