If you are a medical equipment engineer or department manager, DOTmed invites you to submit your thoughts on how to reduce service costs. The best answer will win $500 and the second best will win $250.

Think about this: If you operate an MRI, CT or one of the many other capital equipment systems used in health care today, for 8 to 10 years you could pay as much in service as you spent to buy the system. We would never accept this for the cars we buy yet we accept it — and even expect it — when it comes to capital medical equipment.

Some would say that this is to be expected for a number of reasons. However, consider that we have made great progress in health care and as a result, people live longer. As our population grows older, so does the strain to our health care system. Every day, 10,000 baby boomers retire and are added to the Medicare rolls. This will continue for the next 10 years. Think about what this does to health care spending and the cost of service.

We are going to have to find a way to save on service costs.

It seems to me that our readers are better suited than any other group to suggest ways to reduce service costs.

Please submit your ideas below, and with as much detail as possible. If you prefer to remain anonymous for the public post, you can click the "Make this forum post Anonymous" box you will see on the page.

Feel free to piggyback on other responses as well. This should also be a forum for ideas.

The winning answers will be featured in the May biomedical issue of DOTmed HealthCare Business News.

We look forward to hearing from you.