buyer’s Guide

how to select the best service plan for your imaging equipment

Serviceversion 2.0

Table of Contents

Getting Started .................................................................................... Page 4

Why Do I Need Coverage? ................................................................. Page 6

Which Coverage Plan Is Right for Me? ......................................... Page 8

What Will My Coverage Include? .................................................. Page 11

What Will My Service Plan Cost? ................................................. Page 14

The Next Step ..................................................................................... Page 17

Copyright © 2015

Service Buyer's Guide [version 2.0]

Getting Started

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

Ever feel like your job is never done? You’ve just finished all the research and comparative analysis and negotiation of choosing your next piece of medical imaging equipment, but the decision-making isn’t over just yet. The question remains: Will you put your new equipment under a service agreement?

Like most decisions, this one has several angles and, like most books, this one favors some over others. But we want to be clear about the purpose of this guide: to inform your service decision and prepare you before you try to tackle the imaging equipment coverage market. We don’t want to spend the next seven pages telling you what’s right for your site or your particular system.

That being said, much of what you’ll need to learn as you venture into the service market revolves around the answers to these questions:

• Why do I need coverage?• Which coverage plan is right for me?• What will my coverage include?• What will the cost be?

If you’re ready, the rest of these pages will make you a much better informed imaging equipment service buyer.

If you’re not ready, grab a snack, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and pull up your most comfortable chair. We’ll be waiting when you get back.

Getting Started

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[The deeper the orange on the map, the more equipment we're servicing there]

Why do I need Coverage?

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

How very logical of you to ask! This is an excellent question and one we hear often, especially from first-time equipment buyers. As we stated earlier, it is not our intention to tell you what to buy, but we do want to share with you some of the benefits of service coverage.

Parts and Repair No matter which make, model, or modality you’ve purchased, it will require maintenance or repairs at some point in its lifespan. Even the most advanced medical equipment is still machinery with moving parts and heat-generating electrical components. Until science brings mankind indestructible materials, wear and tear are guaranteed to take their toll on your equipment eventually. In one way or another, this will leave your site in a pinch.

Cost Savings A service provider can maintain a piece of equipment for less money than an end user. Service providers already have the necessary tools, they have access to replacement parts for lower prices, and they are able to spread the risk of component failure over multiple customers and systems in their service pool. These logistical savings are in addition to the costs a site could have in downtime, patient rescheduling, lost reimbursements, and overall stress for their entire imaging team.

Extended System Life

Service coverage prolongs the lifespan of imaging equipment. Regular preventative maintenance (PM) visits keep your system running more efficiently. These scheduled visits are far better for both you and your service provider than unscheduled visits. Prevention costs less for all parties.

As your service engineer comes to know your system better they’ll be able to keep an eye on emerging problems and repair them before they cause downtime. Failing parts can be replaced before they damage other parts and before they cause harder-to-diagnose symptoms.

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Why do i need coverage?

Which Coverage plan is right for me?

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

This is a question you’ll need to answer for yourself. Every imaging equipment owner has a different risk tolerance, a different budget scenario, and a different end goal for their business.

While we can’t answer this question for you, we can help you understand the main types of service plans that are generally available in the service marketplace. The descriptions below refer to how Block Imaging handles service agreements. A quality provider will have similar features:

Full Service

A full coverage service agreement offers the best protection for your imaging equipment and complete peace of mind for you. Engineering, labor, travel, replacement parts, regularly scheduled preventative maintenance, and access to a service hotline are all included in your regular payment. Access to your service is available 24/7 and after hours or weekend work is completed with no overtime charges. This cost remains static even if the cost of repairs and parts exceeds the annual price of the service agreement.

Parts Only

This type of agreement is ideal for sites that have trained engineers on staff or a long-standing relationship with an independent engineer that may not stock their own parts. You choose your engineers the way you always have, and your contract provider gets them the parts they need faster and at competitive prices. If you have the good fortune of being near to an engineer who can offer you labor coverage, a parts only agreement can be the perfect complement to their capabilities.

Labor Only

With labor only coverage, your flat price provides you with the engineers you need, on site, for as long as it takes to fix your problem. It does not include replacement parts. In our experience, it is rare that this type of plans provides sufficient coverage for an imaging facility. Still, if you happen to own a spare unit you can pull parts from or are already connected with some other reliable source of replacements, this plan can work in those unique circumstances.

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Which coverage plan is right for me?

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

Time and Materials

Time and materials (T&M) agreements allow imaging equipment owners to use engineers as needed. T&M customers pay only when labor hours and replacement parts are actually used on their equipment. This service option is perfect for site administrators that have a high tolerance for risk and the budgetary liquidity to accommodate service on demand.

PM Only

If you’re looking to budget your known expenses into a monthly payment and to handle most of your own risk, one of the most basic packages offered is a preventative maintenance (PM) only plan. As the name suggests, this plan includes engineer labor for the OEM-recommended number of PM visits each year. Your system will receive all the standard care and pre-emptive diagnoses it needs to avoid downtime from regular wear and tear.

Essential

If your budget has you in the same ballpark as those who will lean toward the PM Only plan, but your appetite for risk doesn’t run quite as deep, the Essential Plan might be a great fit for you. Like the PM plan, the recommended number of PM visits is built in. The difference is that there are some service repair hours built in too. The number of hours varies by modality, but provides a coverage buffer for a service call or two outside your PM schedule. If you don’t use all your hours, they roll over year after year in an hours “bank”. Your access to support and preferred parts pricing are the same as if you carried full coverage.

Any of these plans could be right for your budget, your equipment, and your patients, but the terms of each will vary from vendor to vendor and, believe us- not all vendors offer the same quality or value. Be sure to ask tons of questions and to read everything available as you talk to prospective service providers and build your understanding of what they can and cannot offer you.

Click to learn more about each service option

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Which coverage plan is right for me?[continued]

What will mycoverage include?

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

Unfortunately, there is no service program that covers absolutely EVERYTHING (at least not as far as we’ve seen). To lend more clarity to what you can expect from the market, we’re going to break the plans you just read about down another level and tell you which circumstances are commonly covered under each one.

Service Options Labor Only Parts Only Full Service PM Only Essential24/7 coverage - No overtime

Parts replacement

Engineer travel expenses

Engineer labor expenses

Preventative maintenance

Options (MRI)

Coil coverage

Cryogen coverage

Compressor coverage

Coldhead coverage

Chiller Coverage

Options (X-ray, CT, C-arm)

Glassware/tube coverage

Image intensifier coverage

Options (PET/CT)

Source rod coverage

Options (Ultrasound)

Transducers

Uptime Guarantees

Tech Support

Assigned service coordinator

24/7 service hotline

Overnight parts shipping

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WHAT will my coverage include?

*

*

*Up to plan limits

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

In addition to the more traditional elements of service coverage, some providers are beginning to drive new options with emerging technology. While you can certainly get quality service without the following perks, the advantages they offer can make the process even smoother, simpler, and more cost-effective.

Online Portal/CMS

Some providers are offering greater visibility into your service account(s) with online customer portals or content management systems. You can log into these portals with a username and password and see all the data on your service. Field service reports, invoices, terms and conditions- all of these are available in digital formats.

In some cases, like Block Imaging’s Service Window customer portal, you have access to even more: messaging with your service rep, real-time viewing of case notes, and a cost calculator that shows your savings under your service plan vs. placing all your service calls on a case-by-case, time and materials basis.

Remote Diagnostics

This is a capability that is still emerging- even for OEM service groups. Remote diagnostic technology allows your service provider to sign into your system’s workstation from their own offices. They can look at your error logs and QA testing results to learn about (and possibly resolve) the problem you’re experiencing without an onsite call. If a site visit is required, the engineer is already aware of the parts that may be needed and can arrive with them in hand. This feature saves downtime and, depending on the type of service agreement you have, can even save significant money.

Discounted Parts Pricing And Online Ordering

Depending on which style of service coverage you’ve selected, you may need to order your own replacement parts. Some parts companies are beginning to enable inventory browsing and parts ordering online through ecommerce platforms.

Ecommerce is convenient and time-saving. If your facility has an in-house clinical engineering or biomed staff, they can place orders at any time through any device with an internet connection. For an example of a parts ecommerce system, visit parts.blockimaging.com to access parts pricing, chat with live support, and experience the ease of completing a part order with just a few clicks of a button.

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WHAT will my coverage include? [continued]

What will my service plan cost?

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

Cost is frequently a question of not only raw numbers but also value. Most of us would agree that the cheapest option is not generally the best. Most of us would also agree that sometimes the extra perks of the most expensive options are not worth the extra money. The goal is to strike the right balance of what you, your equipment, and your site need in terms of features and can afford in terms of budget.

Beyond the features mentioned in previous sections here are additional factors that can have an effect on your service plan’s cost:

• ENGINEER ACCESSIBILITY (How far is your site from the nearest qualified engineer?)

• QUANTITY OF EQUIPMENT (Many vendors offer multi-unit discounts)

• LENGTH OF SERVICE AGREEMENTS (Many vendors offer multi-year discounts)

• REPLACEMENT PARTS AVAILABILITY (Very new, very old, or rare equipment can experience

parts scarcity)

• USAGE (Does your facility have an inordinately high throughput?)

• TRAILER FOR MOBILE UNITS (Certain risks come along with units that travel from site to site)

Having these factors in mind and a ballpark figure based on a little comparative legwork are great resources that will help you manage your expectations as you start to dig deeper in your conversations with vendors. Ultimately, it will be these conversations that will reveal your final, personal cost number.

To help with that, we put together the following for your reference. This worksheet is not a definitive indicator of what you’ll actually pay for a service agreement, but it can be a tool for you as you compare service vendors in both price tag and quality of service. See service plan worksheet on next page.

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What will my service plan cost?

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

15

What will my service plan cost? [continued]

Equipment Click to customize a quote Vendor 1 Vendor 2 Vendor 3

Replacement parts

Labor expenses

Travel expenses

Preventative maintenance

24/7 coverage

No overtime charges

Uptime guarantee

Overnight parts

Assigned service coordinator

Tech support

Online portal

E-commerce

U.S. based support

ISO-certified

Flexible payment options

No hourly minimum

Nationwide

All makes & modalities

GPO discounts

Price

The Next step

For a complete listing of Block’s available systems and services please visitwww.blockimaging.com

Now that you know more about service coverage features and pricing, it’s time to hit the market and select the service vendor that will do the best job of balancing the two for your unique situation. Here are some additional resources to help you make the most of those conversations and build a better service experience for your equipment and your patients:

Keep reading about service in these additional articles:

Imaging Service Success Story: Managing 19 Systems with One Online ToolImaging Equipment Service: Cost vs. QualityMedical Imaging Equipment Service: OEM vs. ISOTime & Materials Imaging Equipment Service: Manage Your Risk StrategicallyService FAQs Answered Here

See more information about Service Window

The Next Step

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START A SERVICE QUOTE REQUEST HERE