Cut out the middleman, do your homework and negotiate like Donald Trump. That's my advice to anyone who wants to save money on surgical supplies. About five years ago, when I started working at the surgery center that I'm currently the purchasing agent for, the new ophthalmology practice was spending $8,000 on a GPO to buy $15,000 worth of supplies a year. That was, in a word, absurd, and served as the catalyst for my dropping our purchasing company to handle purchasing myself.