Hello All,

I know I am behind in posting my comments but better late than never.

Mike you are so right in saying this is the best discussion and we can't publish it.

Mooler-Thank you for starting this thread.

For what its worth, here is my two cents...

We have one delivery a day. I have tried negotiating for 2 deliveries only to be gently turned down.

My facility has been a Cardinal customer for the longest time so I have no experience with the other companies. I hated Choice and love the internet based software that allows me to function productively. There is a lot to learn and it sometimes frustrates the users. When Cardinal moved their customer service to a central location it created a lot of issues but they are finally ironing those out since the feedback from customers is really making a difference. But I must say that the team that handled my questions from the DC was a lot knowledgeable and I learnt a lot of things from them too.

Each rep brings unique abilities to the table. My former Cardinal rep moved first to a management position, then to another division and now to another company. I felt cheated and devastated that I was about to loose such a valuable person who taught me so much.

Reps solve the problems after we present them with the problems! We are the first people who see these problems and pass the baton to the reps. We the buyers are more resourceful since we have picked up tips and tricks along the way. This skill comes to us since we are the ones who deal with ALL kinds of reps! We- the buyers are the survivors of the trade. The reps mere tools who are channels to the wholesalers core.

The reps from the wholesale company have a lot to endure these days. This is a management decision as I see it. They have more accounts and more duties to do. I am merely making a point and am not biased at all. We don’t get individual attention from each one since each one is so busy, yet with three giants in the industry we have to choose which one to go with. Like Colleen says unless you have major problems stick it out with who you have. But it would be beneficial to all of us to know what each company has to offer besides just customer service and reps!

Name of Facility: Kern Medical Center--222 beds

City, State: Teaching, Acute care, Trauma II

Years as a Buyer: 6

Sorry for the late posting.

Our facility was with AmerisourceBergen for 20+ years before we switched almost two years ago to Cardinal.

I have to say I am very pleased we switched. Although I only dealt with ABC for about a year before we switched, I really never liked the company as a whole. Loved our reps, which ironically both have since left ABC and are drug reps with companies that we deal with and call on us again, and tech support, but our dealings with customer service and their service levels were the pits. Plus the technology offerings were basically non-existant.

My dealings with Cardinal go back 10 years as they were the secondary wholesaler for the retail pharmacy I worked for. Never had a problem with Cardinal in the five years I worked retail.

Cardinal has been great. Calls to customer service are routed to national call centers (luckily ours is 80 miles away from us), but you are assigned to a dedicated team (or at least we are). I can call or email and it's going to be one of five people to answer me, instead of the new person every time I called ABC. Questions are answered promptly, and they are willing to get items from another distribution center if ours is out, which is another thing ABC never did for us.

We utilize a lot of the technology offerings of Cardinal (CardinalAssist, ReadyScan, AccountSource Rx, Talyst Carousel) and besides the Carousel (whole other topic)we have streamlined our procurement process tremendously.

Only cons I can come up with about Cardinal are contract prices seem to be loaded slowly, resulting in a lot of credits and rebills (more annoying than anything), we are services out of a small distribution center, which posed issues at first with them stocking our GPO contracted items and in the quantities we need, and we are working on getting our third rep in two years (we are losing Gary Simons and getting Jason Richardson). Gary and Sonya (our first rep) have been great, and I'm sure Jason will be too [especially after reading Ruth's posts]. A little consistancy with the reps would be nice.

Name of Facility: UK HealthCare Chandler Medical Center

City, State: Teaching, Level 1 trauma, 473 beds

Years as a Buyer: 3