Found a vendor with insanely cheap prices - too good to be true? — need advice

LabKate said:

The useful checklist is about verifiability rather than presentation.

I disagree that testing history is decisive. It tells you what a supplier did when they were being watched. Continuity of behaviour under stress — a late shipment, a failed test, a complaint — is more predictive than any run of good results.

Worth separating that from cost and coverage, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.

Happy to go further on any of that.

lisa_labSD said:

Six orders from the same supplier over eight months, every one independently tested, and the consistency is the part worth reporting rather than any…

Vendor reputation tracking for vendor vetting: I maintain a personal spreadsheet with every order I've placed — date, vendor, batch number, Janoshik result, personal efficacy assessment (1-5 scale), and any issues.

After 22 orders across 4 vendors: average purity 97.6%, zero sterility concerns, 2 shipping issues (all resolved). This data gives me confidence in my current source and documentation if issues arise.

I encourage everyone to track their orders systematically. Community data aggregation makes us all safer.

Dr.CardioMD said:

I disagree that testing history is decisive.

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. Denials are usually procedural rather than clinical, and the order that works reflects that. Get the denial reason in writing, because it names the criterion you failed. Then supply the documentation that criterion asks for — usually documented BMI with a comorbidity, or a failed prior therapy. Then appeal, and ask for a peer-to-peer review, because a prescriber talking to a reviewing clinician resolves a large fraction of denials that written appeals do not. Manufacturer copay assistance is separate and applies mainly to commercial insurance, and patient assistance programmes are means-tested rather than a discount.

I would rather be corrected than agreed with, if it comes to it.

Following on from PedsEndoPhilly — and this may be the naive question:

How people are distinguishing a supplier having a bad batch from a supplier on the way out?

Closing the loop on my own question.

Went back through my own correspondence with an earlier supplier and the warning signs were all there in the replies, weeks before the quality changed. I was reading the product and not the behaviour.