/ Selling Medical Equipment at Auction vs. Selling Outright

Selling Medical Equipment at Auction vs. Selling Outright

    Options for efficiently liquidating excess medical equipment.

Periodically managing potentially hundreds of decommissioned hospital assets is no easy feat. To determine whether selling at auction or outright is the best option, knowing your facility’s specific needs will help narrow it down.

Who manages the asset disposition process in your hospital? Do you have an internal process, or do you use an asset disposition vendor to manage this for you?

If you are managing excess medical equipment internally within your health system, an auction could be a solid choice. There are many online auction platforms that will work with hospitals to easily list their medical assets up for bid. The size of the auctions can vary from listing a roomful of equipment to an entire department’s worth of equipment. However, when considering an auction house to liquidate medical devices and supplies, hospitals should be aware that these companies collect a percentage of the product sale price and shipping cost.

When selling medical devices outright, revenue is generated quickly from the sale while avoiding costly auction fees. Selling at an auction can often take away from hospital staff’s time since it can be difficult to liquidate all products in one seamless effort. Typically, buyers are only interested in high value devices and will be drawn to cherry-picking rather than purchasing an entire lot.

As for devices with very low or potentially no resale value, a third party asset disposition vendor can safely and responsibly recycle any unusable equipment while assisting hospitals to earn money back for usable equipment at the same time.

Factors to consider when selling equipment at auction vs. outright:

  1. What is the age and condition of the assets?
  2. What is the market demand for the assets?
  3. What is the fair market value of the assets?
  4. What are the shipping and handling costs of moving the equipment?
  5. How long does it take to generate financial settlements for processed assets?
  6. How many assets with little-to-no market value will need to be recycled instead of sold? What is the process for recycling these assets?

Whether it is an auction, outright sale, consignment, or liquidation—ZRG Medical will manage all your assets in one seamless process. After considering the age and condition of equipment, we offer fair market value on all assets—in high demand or otherwise. All payments and fees will be determined ahead of time to maintain complete transparency. Any devices or supplies we come across with no resale value are managed following the strict R2 standard for e-waste recycling and zero landfill policy.