The hassles of setting up a new surgery center or expanding an existing one can be exhausting and frustrating. Remember, when you place that purchase order for the equipment you need to a vendor, you are not finished. There are many more potential headaches and frustrations just beginning to appear on the horizon. Especially with the shipping and delivery.
If you are purchasing a single item, or even half a dozen smaller items, it probably won’t be that big of a hassle and everything will work out with limited problems. If your purchase includes dozens of items and some of them quite large, heavy and cumbersome, you deserve real support from your medical equipment vendor.
Something to consider is purchasing the bulk of you items from one vendor, especially with refurbished equipment. You’re spending tens of thousands of dollars, maybe hundreds, and your expectation should be high on many factors, but specifically the way in which the delivery is handled. We have heard more than a few horror stories of a customer buying a huge amount of refurbished medical equipment for their new facility and upon delivery a tractor-trailer appears, opens the door and starts unloading right in their parking lot. Then it is up to you to not only get these items inside your facility, uncrating and un-palletizing equipment, looking for damage, and disposing of all of the debris and crates, etc., that have been left behind. Is that really your job when you are giving so much of your business and budget to one company? We think not.
Here’s the Venture Medical approach to good service and support for large facilities:
- Schedule for all items to come first to our warehouse for consolidation and bulk palletizing and crating
- Arrange with customer the best day(s) to be on site with equipment
- Load equipment in dedicated trailer from our LTL carrier. This means that the equipment never gets shifted at a shipping terminal from one trailer to another. This is where the majority of damage occurs. This also means that the way we pack it in the trailer is the way it stays throughout the haul. Nobody knows how to pack the equipment for safety like your dealer should. Let’s face it, we care more about the safety of your equipment than the shipping company does.
- We show up with our own personnel to meet the trailer. We tell the driver where to park and arrange the game plan for the offload and setup with the customer so there are no further hassles.
- We unpack and offload the trailer. Safely. We arrange for extra time for the driver with the terminal so he is not rushed and we can offload at a slow and cautious pace.
- We check carefully as we unpack and offload for any damage that may have occurred during shipping.
- We arrange with the shipping company for debris removal and help the driver load and take back all pallets and debris so we don’t fill your dumpster up with it. Again, hassle free.
- We move all items into the facility and place them where the customer wants them.
- We check all equipment to make sure it is in good working condition and setup each item, whether it be assembling a monitor stand or installing lights, we stay until the job is done and the customer is beyond satisfied.
- One of the representatives on site is one of our biomedical service technicians, so any minor problems can be corrected on the spot.
- Training is provided on most items. Basic user maintenance is covered, as well.
Don’t you deserve this kind of service? We think you do and we strive to make it as easy and hassle free as possible. Can you imagine having to do all of the above yourself with your staff? Isn’t there a million other things that need to be taken care of that shouldn’t involve unpacking, moving , etc? We do it all. And we do it as an included service on most full ASC packages. It is really “From our showroom to your front door!”
From Maine to New Mexico, it really doesn’t matter where your surgery center is located. We may not be right around the corner, but you’ll think we are.
Thanks for reading,
