"People haven't been able to upgrade, so they have put dollars into their current fleet or equipment because of the state of the economy," said Paul Zahn, director of sales and marketing, Shared Medical Equipment Group, LLC, Cottage Grove, Wis.

"The competitive dollars for reimbursement per scan dictated doing things more affordably. Five years ago, customers would have just bought a new trailer with a new system," explained Calutech's Hardesty. While new manufacturing is the company's primary business, Calutech is also a big refurbisher of medical trailers, a business that has picked up recently.


"Business is steady, but a lot of business moved toward refurbishing of customers' trailers as opposed to them selling the old one and buying a new one," Hardesty said.

As in new trailer production, refitting and refurbishing is technically complex.

"A lot goes into putting medical equipment into trailers," said Cliff Hess, president, Texas Medical Mobile Services, Waxahachie, Texas. "Things like shielding are obvious. But what people don't think about when you put a used piece of equipment into a used trailer, is that the trailer may have been built to house something different. It takes quite a bit of research and coordination with the trailer manufacturers to make sure the frame can support the new system, that shielding is adequate and even making sure it's the proper type of metal used in the axels and frames. It can get pretty complicated."

"We start off with a premium refurbished CT scanner installed on steel plates welded to the trailer frame and trimmed out to look better than new," said Greg Kramer, president, C&G Technologies, Inc., Jeffersonville, Ind. "Then, we like to incorporate certain design elements into the interior to break up the monotony of the trailer environment. Our engineering crew will spend many hours burning in the new installation, including road test and setup to check stability of our work and the unit. This whole process is a little more expensive, but you get what you pay for."

Some models of fixed imaging equipment cannot be put into a trailer; however the durable mobile scanners generally can be repositioned into fixed sites to take on another purpose.

"When the life of the mobile is old and they want to pull the equipment out, it may find a home in a small town in a fixed site," Smith said. "However there are times when you cannot take something out of a fixed site and put in a mobile because it doesn't have the accessories."

The international market is another active area for medical trailer companies and refurbishers.

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