The vast majority of hospitals are under increasing pressure in 2024 to stretch their capital equipment budgets to cover the higher costs of new medical, lab, and IT equipment. When you’re tight on budget and looking to make every dollar count, one often overlooked opportunity for savings on new purchases is the equipment trade-in. After all, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the new that you can neglect the value of the old – but that can cost you big in terms of missed savings potential. Next time you plan to trade in old equipment as part of a new purchase, here’s the most valuable thing you can do:
Get “clean” quotes for new equipment without the trade-in included. This is the only way to know with certainty that what you’re quoted for the new equipment is the best possible price. If you try to do two things at once, you open yourself up to a potentially lower trade-in value that can make it look like you’re saving on the new equipment – when really it’s just moving money from one bucket into another. Better still, a clean quote also makes it easier to benchmark the price for the new equipment on a more apples-to-apples basis. Remember: even if you’re definitely planning on doing an equipment trade-in as part of the purchase, you can always ask the supplier to add it in later once you know that you’ve gotten the best price on the new equipment.
A community hospital recently learned the value of a clean quote when their quoted price for new IV pumps included a trade-in credit of $500 per pump. Initially, that looked like a great deal with significant savings. But after the hospital insisted the supplier remove the trade-in from the quote, they were surprised to find the net purchase price was the exact same amount! Once the hospital discovered they could get the same price without the equipment trade-in, they sold the old pumps separately for almost $100,000 and used their unexpected windfall to fund other critical needs that were on hold due to budget limitations.