[T]he University of Vermont Medical Center is seeking to replace $5.1 million in surgical and diagnostic equipment, and the hospital says the new equipment won’t increase costs to the health care system.
The hospital has applied for two permits, called certificates of need, from the Green Mountain Care Board, which approves or denies major health care investments. The board has so far approved the hospital’s request for both applications to go through an expedited process.
“Neither project should have an impact on health care costs because we provide these services now and the cost of the equipment … will be paid without borrowing money,” said Mike Noble, the spokesperson for the UVM Medical Center. “We are replacing equipment that has reached the end of its useful life.”
One application seeks to spend $2.7 million in working capital on new equipment to perform PET/CT scans for treating cancer and neurological diseases. The other seeks to spend $2.4 million in budgeted capital funds on a robotic surgical system used for procedures in urology and gynecology.
The hospital says it has had its PET/CT scanning machine since 2009 and it “does not have the necessary technology to meet current federal requirements for radiation exposure.”
The hospital says it has had its robotic surgical system since 2008. “The system is exhibiting increasing down-time and unreliability,” and the manufacturer says it will stop servicing the machine Dec. 31, 2017, the application says.
In each case, the hospital says the machine’s useful life for accounting purposes has ended.
Both applications must meet a section of the Green Mountain Care Board’s regulatory process that tells applicants to provide “an analysis of whether other health care system costs may be reduced” through using the machine being requested.
On both applications, the hospital says in response to that criterion: “It is appropriate for UVM Medical Center to provide these needed services” because it is the only tertiary care facility in Vermont. The hospital also says in its application the purchases “will not result in an undue increase in the costs of medical care.”
An additional regulation for diagnostic equipment tells applicants to “show that the equipment reduces costs and/or improves quality.” The hospital wrote that it “only seeks to maintain UVM Medical Center’s existing PET/CT services, by replacing fully depreciated equipment that no longer conforms to industry standards.”
Noble, the hospital’s spokesperson, said the PET/CT scanning equipment will be able to perform a type of blood flow testing that “could eliminate other types of tests and reduce costs in that fashion for certain patients.”
In another similar case before the Green Mountain Care Board, the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in St. Johnsbury, part of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock health network, is seeking to replace a linear accelerator for $4.8 million.
