"Prices have increased for replacing pumps with new ones, creating a bigger market for older equipment to stay in service," said George Girgis, President, Meena Medical Equipment, Inc., Colleyville, Texas. "Sometimes the big OEM won't service that older pump anymore, so third party [ISOs] can save them a lot of money because manufacturers have a minimum charge for service and you can often replace the pump for less."

Parts are another important service component and ISOs take different approaches to finding them. Some buy used pumps specifically for parts. Others use OEM-made parts.


For IV Technologies, parts represent half the company's business. "We sell parts to large service companies... Biomedical techs in hospitals buy parts from us," Cramer said.

AIV, Inc., Harmans, Maryland, makes its own parts. "We engineer and manufacture a lot of our own parts and accessories which allows us to control our inventory levels and in turn, the items we offer to our customers," noted Kate Gunther, marketing manager.

"We do our best to always maintain a large stock of repair parts for most devices. Some parts are hard to keep in stock due to high demand," stated Philip Stuemke, Vice President, NOVATEK Medical, Effingham, Ill., which also sells and services all types of medical pumps.

The Bottom Line

As hospitals strive to contain costs, medical pumps--the most prevalent of devices--present an opportunity for savings by extending the life cycle of a large cache of equipment and by selling used units when upgrading. In either case--whether a hospital is buying or selling--some basic business fundamentals apply.

"Hospitals may look to purchase equipment in volume. So they will look for a volume price," said Elite Medical's Teddy Cohen. "It boils down to price, product, service and warranty."

For cost savings, "keep the old tech going," said Cramer. "We can maintain their older equipment when the manufacturers stop selling the parts... So if [the hospital] can keep their product line going and are not being forced by the OEM to switch out the old equipment, they can keep it alive."

"My message to hospitals is check around before you sign on the dotted line with the pump manufacturers. Make sure you're getting the best bang for the buck. And always demand money up front before any equipment it removed from their facility," suggested Caples. Look for cash and carry on trade-ins, he advised. "And finally, be sure to have the biomedical staff or a qualified ISO check the equipment before returning it to the OEM for service." In other words, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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