A doctor’s main tool is his or her sharp mind. But, no matter how sharp your mind is, you will perform surgeries with a scalpel or a radio wave knife. And, regardless of the sharpness of your eyesight, you will perform diagnostics with a microscope or X-ray.

In this article, we will talk about the equipment of medical practice and why the actual needs of a doctor and the legal requirements so often diverge.

One of the items we ask our clients when opening a private medical practice is a list of available equipment. Why the list of available equipment? Because in most cases, despite all the modernity of the equipment, it is likely to be inconsistent with the equipment list.

What is the equipment list in medicine?
The equipment list is the minimum set of medical equipment that a doctor should have, depending on the specialty, in a particular office (or group of offices).

So what to do if the report card establishes a minimum list of medical equipment and you need to have a product that you don’t actually need?

There is no perfect solution that would take into account both the real needs of the practice and the legal requirements. This issue can be resolved in the following ways:

to purchase outdated or unnecessary medical equipment solely to fulfill the requirements for obtaining a medical practice license (you will be surprised how much such equipment is in the offices and storerooms of medical institutions and offices);
not to purchase certain products if their functionality is duplicated by other available equipment (in this case, we recommend that you clearly state this when filling out license documents and during inspections);
rely on the understanding of officials (who actually sometimes have a medical education and can understand the principle of operation of a particular medical device) of the obsolescence or specificity of equipment or procedures and not purchase such equipment at all. In this case, as well as in the first one, there is still a risk of being denied a license, but it is higher.

We would like to clarify that outdated and unnecessary medical equipment are not always the same thing.

Doctors often understand unnecessary equipment as something that is not needed in their practice, but can be used by another doctor of the same specialty. If such equipment is on the report card, then in most cases, you still need it. Because, with some exceptions, you cannot divide your specialty as you see fit. Well, at least not by equipment.

Also, there are more modern report cards, for example, in terms of the functioning of family doctors’ offices or X-ray rooms. In such cases, there are practically no options and you have to fully staff the office.