Your Guide to Medical Imaging Equipment

As the industry continues to shift with reimbursement rates, regulation, and patient trends, cash flow can be a rollercoaster ride for imaging centers. Unexpected costs such as medical equipment repairs only add pressure to the ups and downs. This is why covering medical imaging equipment with some type of service plan is valuable, not only to a facility’s bottom line, but also to the peace of mind of its techs, physicians, and administrators.

As a long-time provider of equipment service, we’d like to share with those of you who’ve been carrying the burden of upkeep on your own five reasons signing up for service can save you unplanned cost and many headaches.

 “My OEC C-arm was quite an investment, so I treat it with kid gloves. With the care I take, it’ll never break down!” Yeah; and in a perfect world there’d be no taxes and dirty diapers would smell like roses.

It’s a hard fact that, until science can provide mankind with indestructible materials, equipment problems are an unfortunate eventuality. While the scientists get cracking on that one, we at Block Imaging thought we’d give you the next best thing: four of the most highly-reported OEC 9800 and 9900 C-arm maintenance problems and ways that you can help fix or prevent them.

In February of 2019, the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance (MITA) released a new standards whitepaper titled "Requirements for Servicing of Medical Imaging Equipment". It is the latest item to stir the ongoing debate on who should be servicing imaging equipment and how it should be serviced.

A document like this has the potential to be worrisome for some service entities. We don’t see it that way.

Cars, houses, heck- your children! It seems that all of life's major investments entail costs long after we acquire them. From your imaging facility's business perspective, the equipment investment in an OEC 9900 C-arm is certainly no exception. While its functionality and image quality make it one of the top fluoroscopy tools available to serve patients, ownership of a C-arm comes with necessary long-term costs that should be a part of your C-arm purchasing considerations.

To help you weigh these needs along with your purchase price, we've compiled average costs for three tiers of OEC 9900 service and parts through Block Imaging. Read on to build a general understanding of what it can cost to maintain and protect your C-arm investment.