Negotiating contracts and budgets

1. Negotiating
Contracts
and Budgets

2. Always Negotiate Budgets
● Many sites believe that they will
lose the study if they try to
negotiate their budgets, but this is
not true
● Every CRO that is negotiating with
a site has a max for that site, your
objective is to get as close to the
max as possible

3. Always Negotiate Budgets cont’d
● Most CROs already know that 20% of sites will
never negotiate their budget and they get to keep
this as profit for themselves
● They subsidize the 20% of sites that the sponsor
is willing to overpay because they have a record
of providing good quality data and large
enrollment numbers
● Most sites fall into the remaining 60%

4. Your Lack of Negotiation Can Hurt Your Site and Other
Sites
● If you do not negotiate your budget
and settle for what they give you, it
will set the standard lower for other
sites and make it harder for everyone
else to negotiate as well
● Lack of negotiation can also indicate to
the CRO and Sponsor that you are not
a knowledgeable or experienced site

5. How It Works
● CROs are given a total budget from the sponsor
● From this total budget, they will allot the
individual budgets for each site and then pocket
the remainder in profit
● If the budget negotiators can keep your budget
under a certain level/amount, they get to keep
the difference in profit

6. Be Prepared
● The CRO is given incentive to keep your
budget as low as possible
● As such, they will throw anything and
everything at you to keep your cost down,
such as the Sunshine Act, requesting third-
party documentation, supporting
documentation, and justification for your cost
● As long as you can justify each of these things,
they are usually willing to compromise

7. Things To Keep In Mind
● There are limits for what you
can push for,
● Be aware of the industry
standard of what the
compensation is for each
procedure, and negotiate
accordingly
● A 30% increase is the norm

8. Negotiate Early
● Always try to negotiate as much of the budget up
front if you can
● Aim to negotiate within the first 3 visits of the study
● The CRO will try to keep the budget for towards the
end of the study because they count on many
subjects not making it that far
● If you wait to negotiate your budget towards the end
of the study, you may not be receive all of your funds
if some subjects drop out