Warranty Negotiation When Purchasing Medical Instrumentation

When purchasing new medical equipment, the warranty terms are typically up for negotiation. There is no need to take just what is offered. A cookie cutter warranty may not fit the special needs of your practice and patients. Here are a few things to look for in your warranty, and to ask for if they are not offered.

* Scheduled maintenance – To maintain the warranty, you will typically have to agree to and perform regular scheduled maintenance on the machinery or medical equipment. You will need to know exactly what must be done and at what frequency. Is the frequency based on number of uses, or is it a function of time? Does maintenance include replacement of certain supplies or materials, or even components? These are all usually technical matters and many are not subject to negotiation. But the number or cost of professional maintenance calls you will receive can be a point of discussion. As long as you are doing your part to keep the equipment running well, you want your vendor and/or manufacturer to be supporting you in that as well.
* Training – If your purchase contract doesn’t specify training for your staff regarding use, care, and maintenance of the machine or equipment, make sure it is spelled out in your warranty.
* Cost of replacement parts – Find out if the vendor will share some of the cost of parts, especially ones that are prone to wearing out. Obviously anything found to be defective should be replaced at no cost to you
* Length of warranty – When it comes to warranty length, the longer the better, or the higher volume the better. It will depend on the type of instrument and test volume, but you want coverage to last as long, or for as many tests, as possible.
* Voiding of Warranty – Make the vendor go over what will void your warranty and make sure that any staff member who operates the machine understands this too. This important point is often overlooked. Most vendors are fairly straight-forward about the actions and conditions that will void a warranty—unauthorized repairs, or failure to use specified supplies, for example—so make sure they are terms you understand fully.
* Response time – Get signed documentation as to how long the vendor can take to respond to a call. Know under what conditions a technician will be sent to your site as opposed to doing troubleshooting by telephone. Know where the people answering help line calls are located and what days/hours they are available. Learn what will trigger a on site call versus a help desk call.
* Replacement costs – Under what terms does the vendor offer a replacement for the instrument and how much of that cost will you have to pick up? What kind of insurance arrangement does the vendor require?

A warranty is not an incidental thing. It can mean the difference between your machine being a profitable asset and your medical equipment becoming a endless pit for your money. The warranty should be one of the first things that you bring up with a vendor and should, for the most part, be open for negotiation. If you find a company that is resistant to talking about terms – take your money elsewhere.