Cost of Setting Up Exam Room

Hello,

I was just wondering, how much does it cost to set up your own medical play cabinet? Has anyone here ever done it? I guess it must be quite expensive...

Surely it would cost as much as the individual can afford to equip as per their requirements? As there are many sources from which to purchase, whether new or used the costs must vary from person to person.

It would as locke states though be interesting to see what value members on here estimate their equipment/stock to be worth. I have only seen one person's equipment (no pun intended there) and cannot imagine what it would have cost to purchase over the years.

I have never done this, but I was an investigator for a large hospital corporation. I would research places to find stolen hospital equipment. There are plenty of companies that sell used equipment, to include on the web .Most of it is legit, but some is stolen. A lot of foreign countries buy used US hospital equipment. Just don't go buying x-ray machines and cat scans and you should be able to do this without spending a fortune.

This is an interesting question. A lot of the answer depends on how fast you want to populate your room, how much work you are willing to put into fetching stuff (ie how willing are you to drive a few hours to bring something back), and how functional it needs to be (ie can you make some repairs on your own).

If you want 100% functional, 100% delivered and quick, you are obviously going to pay top dollar for it. That's just the way it goes.

If you are willing to travel a ways that greatly increases your odds of finding something that is more attractively priced.

If you are willing to wait, you can often times make amazing deals. Even more so if you combine waiting with being willing to travel.

Whenever you see a piece on ebay, such as an exam table, it is not generally quickly translated to cash above it's scrap value and a lot of people don't even care about that. Even in the little area we live in I have seen exam tables for free that have rips in the vinyl for example. If you see a $500 table, wait a couple of weeks and offer $50 for it. As I said the stuff is not easily converted into cash.

If you have to bring goodies home and you live in an area where other people mind your business, see my blog. I have an entry on how to break a table down so it looks pretty discrete (like a desk) to move, and also how to build a contraption to help you get large and heavy objects up stairs with just one helper.

Hi - I have a full surgery set up that I've put together over the years. I bet I've spent about £5k on it in total! Not a cheap fetish! 😃

Depends what's in the cabinet! I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at what I'v spent. Initially I had cheaper items then upgraded as time went on and my tastes/interests changed. Some things I've bought I've never used again and thrown away so luckily I didn't invest!

Ive spent a lot ,,,im afraid to count

I have no idea. It's been a little here, a little there. If I see something high quality or unusual on ebay, I will buy it. I also got lucky one time at an estate sale (new colonic machine that no one knew what it was) and a medical supply business bankruptcy sale (lighted rigid endoscope with cases of anoscopes, proctoscopes, and sigmoidoscopes, 2 otoscopes, a case of stethoscopes, and a couple of cases or rectal thermometers). The colonic machine was $100 and I made a net profit on ebay with the surplus medical stuff I didn't need. I spent $1500 on a beautiful exam/gyn table, however.

I have set mine up over a long period of time. If I see something I want / need and I have the cash to pay for it (I won't buy what I can't afford), I'll go ahead and buy it. I have been lucky acquire some stuff from a retired doc's office. I am currently living in an apartment so alot of my bigger stuff (like a hospital bed) is in a storage locker, but when I get back in a house, I'll probably be scouring ebay (and othe rplaces) for a few more things, such as an exam table.

As others have mentioned, it greatly depends on what you want and are able to put into it. For me, having an exam room in my home is simply not feasible, and even if it were, I travel to my patients about as often as they travel to me, so everything needs to be portable. My biggest item was a portable massage table for $150 that functions nicely as an exam table. (And you could find one for less -- one time when traveling to a patient, I bought one locally on Craigslist for about half that. It was cheaper than taking mine and paying the airlines' oversized bag fees.) Beyond that, it's mostly just little stuff here and there that adds up to a nice collection. Some supplies are easy enough to obtain in pharmacies (e.g. exam gloves, lubricant, disposable enema bottles, stethoscope, BP monitor, even a cheap otoscope and penlight). You can also buy a lot on Amazon. I obtained various types and sizes of metal vaginal specula for about $7 each (and I usually like to give the patient the option to take hers home if she doesn't already own one). At the same time I picked up a reflex hammer, tuning fork, and Wartenberg wheel for about $10-15 total. Older-style glass mercury thermometers are tough to find these days, but a fellow playdoc here pointed me to the veterinary section of enasco.com where they were cheaply available (maybe $4 each - and again I like to let the patient take hers home if she wishes). I picked up a couple of exam gowns for $10 total and quite a few rolls of crinkly exam table paper for $12. On dealmed.com, I got a bag of 25 disposable plastic anoscopes for about $25 (I've gone through maybe half of them in a year) as well as a few catheters and sterile insertion trays, tongue depressors, and swabs for about the same cost.

Could you spend more? Absolutely! There are things I would like to add. Unfortunately, they're more expensive and/or less portable -- maybe in the future. But all things considered, I've spent no more than a few hundred dollars and can still do a very nice, realistic exam.

I have imbibed back and forth over the years with the portable setup but once you have the fixed exam room with all the furniture, devices, and instruments it has been hard to ever want to go back. In my case for portability I have the fold flat aluminum army table that's heavier than hell and roller cases of equipment and instruments. The time it takes to setup and then the last minute cancellations or patients bringing someone unknown along that makes it feel awkward for an assortment of reasons--the general loss of control--has made it typically more disappointing than enjoyable as a whole. If I had no other way then that would be acceptable but having a fixed exam room--and when I say fixed I still have moved it several times from my spare bedroom to empty houses to commercial buildings with extra space to friends houses, etc--I only load my portable gear up for pretty much sure things (if there is such a thing) when I leave to go on the road. When I have to fly it is completely out. I have never done that and can't understand how those that have done this manage. I have enough trouble explaining TSA approved diagnostic equipment now that I carry for work when i go through security checkpoint let alone assorted stethoscopes and specula. As for cost, I am hoping some of the nostalgic instruments I have picked up from closed hospital and clinics is appreciating in price and will offset all the money I have put into gear when I someday choose to sell it.