MEDICAL DEVICE WARRANTIES:
Fine Print, Major Total Cost Implications
Hospitals are facing well-documented pressures to reduce their costs while still being held accountable to provide quality care. One path to cost reduction is to ensure hospitals have an accurate understanding of the real cost of medical equipment. The upfront purchase price for a piece of capital imaging equipment is one obvious factor — but what about the true cost of owning this equipment?The amount of additional outlay on a product is often surprising, especially on equipment that has the lowest cost upfront. Quite often, what appears to be the least expensive alternative ends up costing the hospital more in the long run.
Important questions to ask include:
• What exactly is covered by the warranty? More
importantly, what isn’t?
• What happens when my equipment fails during the
warranty period?
• How do you help sustain my clinical operation while the
equipment is inoperable?
• What is the historical frequency of failures reported during
the warranty period?
These questions are essential but not suficient. The
following article describes the aspects of a medical device
warranty’s “fine print” that hospitals should scrutinize
before entering into a relationship with a vendor for the
purchase of imaging equipment.
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