With the pressure to significantly reduce costs, understanding the Total Cost of Ownership for your medical equipment is critical. Healthcare reform and decreased reimbursements are squeezing margins even further, making it imperative for directors and managers to select the most cost effective options to purchasing and maintaining medical equipment, and budget for it as accurately as possible.
First let’s look at the factors that can affect the Total Cost of Ownership. These factors typically include:
- Equipment Acquisition
- Construction
- Annual Service
- Upgrades
- Peripherals
- Supplies
- Staffing
- Certificates of Need
- Leases
- If applicable, costs of build out
- Disposal, or relocation
When an organization is considering a new, additional, or replacement piece of equipment, all of these costs should be included in the analysis so that Life-Cycle costs can be compared.
The operating budget must include expenses for ongoing equipment maintenance. This might be accomplished through one, a combination, or all of the following:
- Point-of-sale OEM service contracts
- ISO or 3rd Party service options
- In-house servicing capabilities
- Glassware & digital detector shared coverage options
Further, when considering the on-going equipment maintenance costs, several variables must be evaluated. Each piece of equipment should be examined to determine the appropriate level of coverage and a competent service provider for your desired coverage. What is the current state of each piece of medical equipment, utilization, upgrade history and service history? Does the software need to be upgraded? Is there a need for remote diagnostic support? Are your existing medical equipment service contracts providing the value you are paying for?
It is important to maintain access to this data on your medical equipments’ costs, efficiency and quality of service.
But how do you know if what your budgeting is “in-line” with what it should be? Benchmarking of service costs can be very valuable. Although service costs can vary widely by geography, and type of equipment, independent service partners like RENOVO SOLUTIONS can share these benchmarks based on experience servicing numerous other hospitals and medical facilities across the country.
RENOVO can help with your value analysis of your medical equipment and is experienced a assisting hospitals manage their assets’ life cycle. We provide true transparency and open-book access to all operational and cost information through our proprietary CMMS system. RENOVO SOLUTIONS is not an OEM and can provide unbiased and objective technology advice.
