A service manager shares hard-earned lessons about STERIS equipment service plans — what's worth covering, what's not, and the questions you should ask before signing.

If you manage medical equipment — even if you're just responsible for one surgical table or a single sterilizer — you've probably stared at a STERIS service plan quote and wondered: is this actually worth it?

I've spent six years managing equipment purchases for a surgical center. In that time, I've personally made (and documented) five significant service-plan mistakes, totaling roughly $12,000 in wasted budget. This FAQ is everything I wish I'd known from day one.

The Questions I Wish I'd Asked

1. Are STERIS equipment service plans worth the cost?

It depends on the equipment and how heavily you use it. In 2019, I skipped the service plan on a new STERIS OT table to save around $2,800 a year. Sounded like a smart budget move at the time. Then the hydraulic column started drifting in the middle of a procedure.

Repair cost: $6,400. Downtime: a full week. That one incident changed my policy permanently: if equipment failure can stop a procedure, it gets a service plan.

2. Which STERIS equipment should never be without a service plan?

From my experience, these are non-negotiable:

• STERIS surgical tables (OT tables). We use ours for cardiac stent procedures. A table that drifts or won't hold position isn't just a nuisance — it's a patient safety issue. You don't realize how much you depend on a stable table until you're in a case where the patient's position shifts.
• Steam sterilizers. If your sterilizer breaks down, the entire surgery schedule stops. You can't "make do" without sterile instruments. Even a one-day outage creates a backlog that takes days to clear.
• Washer disinfectors. Less critical than a sterilizer, but still worth covering. A prolonged outage bottlenecks reprocessing and backs up your whole day.

3. What's the biggest blind spot when comparing service plans?

Too many buyers compare annual prices and completely miss response time commitments. I was one of them.

In September 2022, our laser surgery system needed a recalibration after a fiber bundle issue. I assumed the standard plan covered it. It didn't. The technician couldn't arrive for five days — unless we paid an expedited fee of $900.

Now I ask three questions before signing any plan, STERIS or otherwise:

1. What's the guaranteed response time?
2. What specifically is not included?
3. How much does expedited service actually cost?

4. Do laser surgery systems need a different type of service plan?

Yes — or at least you need to read the standard contract more carefully. I assumed "standard coverage" meant everything. It doesn't. Laser systems often have components (fibers, lenses, calibration tools) excluded from standard plans.

If you have a laser surgery system, check how these are handled:

• Laser fibers and protective windows (consumables)
• Calibration frequency and cost
• Software updates — included or extra?

Don't make the same assumption I did. Ask before you sign.

5. Can you get a service plan for used STERIS equipment?

Yes, but you need to verify before you buy, not after. We purchased a used STERIS washer disinfector at auction, assuming we'd add a service plan afterward. Turned out the unit needed extensive repairs just to pass the pre-service inspection (the checklist they run before accepting a machine into a plan). The first-year cost ended up higher than the machine itself.

My rule now: get a pre-purchase service evaluation and a tentative service plan quote before bidding on used equipment.

6. What does dental CAD/CAM have to do with STERIS service plans?

Dental clinics are increasingly adopting CAD/CAM — computer-aided design and manufacturing — systems for crowns and restorations. The workflow is genuinely impressive. But a pattern I keep seeing: clinics invest heavily in the CAD/CAM milling unit and forget about the sterilizer in the back room.

If your STERIS tabletop sterilizer goes down, you can't reprocess instruments. And without sterile instruments, you're not seeing patients — no matter how advanced your CAD/CAM system is. That sterilizer deserves at least as much service coverage as the milling machine.

7. What's the most important question to ask before signing a service plan?

Ask "What's not included?" — and get the answer in writing. I've learned the hard way that the vendor who clearly lists all fees and exclusions upfront is the one you can trust. A low price with hidden exclusions isn't a deal; it's a gamble.

Also worth remembering: any claims about response times or coverage should be written into the contract. Per FTC advertising guidelines (ftc.gov), service-related claims need to be truthful and substantiated. But that's about what they're allowed to advertise, not what they're obligated to do unless it's in your contract. If it's not in writing, it doesn't exist.