1. Work to negotiate a warranty tailored to your advantage. Mike Kintner, service contracts manager at TriMedx, suggests ASCs take advantage of equipment warranties by tailoring them to specific facility needs. He says most medical equipment warranties last for 12 months, which means companies will provide labor services and extra parts free of cost for that period of time. If your ASC already has a technician who is trained in the clinical and technical support of a newly purchased piece of equipment, he suggests negotiating the labor portion of a warranty and extending the portion of the warranty that guarantees covered costs for additional parts.
“If I’m buying 20 anesthesia machines and they come with a 12-month parts and labor warranty and I already have a trained technician who can support it and do repairs, what I might want to do is negotiate 90 days of labor warranty and two years of coverage of parts instead,” Mr. Kintner says. “A warranty is usually already baked into the acquisition price, so what you’re doing is just reallocating the value of the warranty.”
He says ASCS should also take advantage of warranties by having their clinical engineering teams or other staff technicians work with the original equipment manufacturers during labor services as a form of free training. Additionally, ASCs should use the warranty to evaluate the long-term service needs of that piece of equipment.
From “5 Strategies for Saving Your ASC Money by Streamlining Equipment Costs.”
2. Make a final purchase with the orthopedic physicians. Signing a contract with a supplier for orthopedic devices without physician involvement can be detrimental to the financial health of your orthopedic-driven ASC. Obtaining feedback from physicians on potential supplies can help ASCs better gauge which orthopedic devices are worth investing in.
“Without getting physician feedback and buy-in, [orthopedic-driven ASCs] could end up paying out money for some extremely expensive orthopedic supplies while the ASC physicians are wanting to use another supply,” Elaine Thomas, administrator at St. Francis Mooresville (Ind.) Surgery Center, says. “Facilities will want to make sure, before signing, that that particular orthopedic supply is the one the ASC’s physicians want to use.” To get optimal feedback, Ms. Thomas suggests ASCs request a free trial of the orthopedic device if the ASC’s orthopedic physicians have not had a chance to already use it.
From “3 Practical Guidelines for Containing Orthopedic Device Costs.”
3. Invest in technicians to maintain your equipment. While the capital purchase of equipment might seem more daunting in the short term, service contracts provided by the original equipment manufacturer can cost your facility significantly more money over a period of several years. According to Mr. Skochdopole, centers can usually save money by employing their own technicians to maintain and fix equipment, rather than relying on service contracts that can charge more than five times the salary of the technician per hour of work.
Investing in quality technicians is not cheap, but it reduces your reliance on manufacturer contracts and ensures you have a staff member available to promote equipment uptime and get to know your facility’s needs. Mr. Skochdopole says the proximity alone of an employed technician can be valuable. “One of the critical factors is response time,” he says. “If you have someone on site, it’s a matter of them walking [to the equipment]. Depending on where you’re located, a manufacturer may have to send somebody out from a major city, so you have half a day of downtime before they can even take a look at it.”
The minimum amount of time equipment is down, the better your revenue generation will be, he says. In terms of finding quality technicians, Mr. Skochdopole says facilities can hire people straight form the manufacturer, where technicians may be tired of working on the road and want to stay in one place. You can also look at local technical schools, inquire with the American College of Clinical Engineering or advertise locally.
From “5 Ways to Save Money on ASC Equipment.”
4. Look for cheaper alternatives for equipment. After bringing on the new spine physician in late 2009, Midlands Orthopaedics faced the challenge of researching and buying new equipment and supplies the new physician would need in order to perform spine procedures. Belinda Rutledge, administrator, of Midlands Orthopaedics Surgery Center in Columbia, S.C., says she worked closely with the physician for several months before he officially joined the surgery center so they could jointly agree on the least expensive options without compromising on the quality of the instruments.
“We didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a spine table, and it took about eight months just to find a quality used spine table because a brand new one will cost you around $160,000,” she says. “We finally purchased a used spine table for half that price after working with three vendors and working out the best deal. The key is that we worked with that surgeon to develop and bring in all the equipment he would need to build his practice.”
From “6 Ways to Increase Profitability of Your Orthopedic-Driven ASC.”
