Holy cats! John Cusack and the Mayans were right! Here it is, 2012, and your world has just ended. Your MRI is having trouble, your manager is foaming at the mouth, and that little vein that runs up the middle of your forehead is bulging like a bratwurst on the barbecue.

An acid fire had been burning in Peter’s gut for some time. His debts, his inability to shed the ten pounds he gained from reckless holiday indulgences, his daughter’s new boyfriend with the motorcycle and the skull tattoo…  

Welcome! And thank you for joining us in our second segment of the colossally popular “Contract Exclusions” series! We knew that everyone who read part one, MRI Contract Exclusions, would be chomping at the proverbial bit to tell their CT-owning friends that their number was about to come up, so we put you folks in line in front of all the remaining modalities. Don’t you feel loved?

Several weeks ago I saw a video produced by GE in which their aerospace engineering team watches a plane take off using the engine they’ve designed and manufactured.  This morning I was forwarded another GE “story” connecting folks in their healthcare engineering division with cancer survivors that had gotten early, life-saving diagnoses as a result of GE scanning technology.

Have you ever had someone try selling you refurbished X-Ray or CT tubes? Do you know what the phrase “refurbished tube” means?

Are there C-Arm parts available?  Will we be able to fix it? 

Hardly a week goes by where our team doesn’t discuss long term parts and servicing capability with customers considering two different used c-arm models.

When people start talking about legally binding documents, the expression “boilerplate” gets thrown around quite a bit: a boilerplate contract, a boilerplate proposal, a boilerplate (insert any old document type here); and the list goes on and on.

You’ve shopped around. You’ve taken a gander at the fruits the current used c-arm market is bearing. You’ve stuffed your gullet at the all-night Vegas-style buffet of sales pitches and slick brochures with their images of earnest-looking doctors and doe-eyed nurses. And yet, your thirst for c-arm knowledge is not quenched. No. You’re still left with a single burning conundrum:

Any surgical C-Arm worth its salt is a veteran of innumerable invasive procedures. In light of this, it’s not exactly breaking news to the doctors and technicians that work with them that this equipment can get messy sometimes. But plastic Image Intensifier (II) shields, fluid collection systems, and a regular wipe-down with hospital-grade disinfectant should keep things pretty clean, right?

“It’s Only a Couple of Floors Up, Right?”

This is what they all say: The new MRI-CT-Digital R/F Room is on its way and the old Bone Dense-Rad Room-Analog R/F is in its spot! Well, the old system is still good. The techs keep using it every day, so it’s going to be kept. The question now is, where? Wait a minute! I know the perfect place: and it’s only a couple of floors up.

Raise your hand if this sounds like you: You’ve had diagnostic imaging equipment break down and, in the course of finding a solution, run across third party companies who try to “upsell” their capabilities and knowledge in certain modalities or services. If your hand is up, put it down; you’re drawing stares. But like us, you’ve learned the hard way that some companies are able to stand by their claims and some, unfortunately, are not.

So, you’re considering upgrading your imaging equipment, eh? And I suppose you’ve already thought of selling your existing equipment to help finance your upgrade? Look at you, all entrepreneurial and stuff! Those are great ideas, but let us offer you this one piece of advice that can significantly impact your medical imaging equipment appraisal: