Procurement for design services is probably one of the most frustrating tasks that occupy our work day. Some of us spend a small portion of our day dealing with them, some spend all of their day and then the lucky ones spend no time at all. I envy them.
Did the proposal address the prospects concerns well enough? Did we include all of the required forms? Signed? Notarized? Was it the right font size? Enough pages? If those are not enough, now we have another concern, vendor certifiers who do nothing but take some benign firm information and charge you an annual fee to be paid to each hospital to allow for the possibility of providing design services. They provide no guarantee that any commission will come your way. The institution usually selects from a list compiled well before you even entered your information. The certifying agency does nothing but collect your money, did I say annually? Money being paid to publically funded institutions. Many of the hospitals are publically owned that receive tax dollars to operate and provide very necessary healthcare services and then there are privately owned hospitals that do not receive tax dollars. However, all of them receive federal Medicaid funding which is derived from our taxes. Vendor certification agencies may be necessary in someone eyes, but why design firms have to pay to be allowed the opportunity to obtain the commissions is beyond my comprehension, perhaps our tax dollars are not enough? If this practice ever crossed over to the education design professionals I know they would not stand for it. Why do we?
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Lawrence Witkowski AIA
Principal Owner-Healthcare Architect
Witkowski & Co. Architecture
Atlanta GA
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