Why do they say “it costs the hospital to use the machine” when the hospital owns the machine?

Question

It always confused me. A hospital has an MRI or some other machine, and you hear they try to use it as little as possible to cut costs, because it costs them this or that amount per usage. But why would that be if they own it?

In: 379

Answer 1

Operating costs: someone has to interpret the results of the scan, housekeeping may be required to clean the room after use, there are consumable (electricity, etc) used up when the machine is on, etc.