A CFO's Guide to Reading a Perfusion Services Agreement

A perfusion services agreement is a financial instrument disguised as an operational one. It is drafted by the party that benefits from its complexity, and it often renews for years without a serious read. When one crosses your desk, a few sections deserve disproportionate attention.

Start with the pricing mechanism

Understand exactly how you are billed: a flat per-case rate, a tiered structure, a management fee plus pass-through supplies, or some hybrid. The structure determines where margin hides. Pass-through supply arrangements in particular deserve scrutiny, because that is where a second, less visible markup frequently lives.

Then find the escalators and the exit

The clause that quietly costs the most

Auto-renewal paired with a long notice window is the single most expensive combination for hospitals. It converts inertia into cost: miss a notice date by a week and you are locked in for another full term at terms you never revisited. The first thing to calendar from any perfusion contract is the notice deadline that keeps your options open.

When to bring in help

If the pricing mechanism is not transparent on a careful read, that opacity is itself the signal. An independent review of the agreement against market benchmarks routinely pays for itself many times over — usually before the contract is even signed.