Cone beam imaging is a big-ticket purchase that usually arrives with a lead-lined room attached, so the funding has two halves to it.
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Yes. Cone beam CT units are regularly funded for UK practices, normally on hire purchase or lease over the working life of the machine. The scanner itself is solid security: it is expensive, serial numbered, and there is a genuine used market through dealers. What trips buyers up is everything around it. Room shielding, structural floor work, the IRMER paperwork and the radiation protection advisor’s report are all costs that appear on separate invoices, are soft in funding terms, and are frequently left out of the budget until the week before installation.
Used kit: Yes — dealer-refurbished units of around five to eight years old are fundable where the manufacturer still issues parts and the machine passes a critical examination on install.
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Business asset finance is quoted on a flat rate, so that is what this shows — with the equivalent APR underneath, because the two are not the same number. A quick guide only; your actual rate depends on the asset, term, deposit and lender.
Representative example: on Hire Purchase, borrowing £25,000 over 48 months at a 6.0% flat rate (equivalent to 11.5% APR representative), you would repay around £646 a month; total amount repayable approximately £31,000, of which £6,000 is the cost of finance. This calculator is for illustration only — it is not a quote or an offer of finance, and the rate and repayments you are offered will depend on the asset, term, deposit and your circumstances. CW Asset Finance is a credit broker, not a lender, and may receive a commission from the lender that funds your agreement. All finance is subject to status, affordability and lender approval. CW Asset Finance is an Appointed Representative of Rural Finance Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 630701).
A healthcare underwriter will recognise a CBCT immediately and will usually be comfortable with the hardware. Their caution sits with the building. A scanner installed into a shielded room in leasehold premises is a fixture in all but name, and repossessing one means paying a specialist to decommission and lift it, so recovery value is assumed to be modest. Expect questions about the lease term, the radiation protection file, and who is the named IRMER practitioner. Practices with mixed NHS and private income and a settled principal read well. What gets declined: units bought before planning or landlord consent is in place, private imports with no UK engineer, and applicants who want the whole room build capitalised with only a fraction of the total represented by the scanner.
Examples of the machines we are asked to fund. This is not an exhaustive list — if what you are buying is not here, it does not mean we cannot fund it. Your supplier quote is what the agreement is written against.
| Machine | What it is |
|---|---|
| Planmeca ProMax 3D Mid | Imaging unit with adjustable volume sizes |
| Planmeca Viso G7 | Large field imaging unit for practices |
| Carestream CS 9600 | Imaging unit with guided positioning |
| Carestream CS 8200 3D | Compact panoramic and 3D imaging unit |
| Dentsply Sirona Orthophos SL 3D | Panoramic and 3D imaging unit |
| Dentsply Sirona Axeos | 3D imaging unit for general practice |
| Vatech Green X | Imaging unit with multiple field sizes |
| Vatech Smart Plus | Compact 3D imaging unit |
| Morita Veraview X800 | Panoramic and 3D imaging system |
| NewTom GO 2D/3D | Compact wall-mounted imaging unit |
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Implant and endodontic practices dominate here, usually at the point where the cost of outsourcing scans to an imaging centre starts to look silly against the number of cases being planned. Orthodontists buying combined 2D and 3D units are the next group. A smaller but growing category is the referral practice that intends to sell scanning to neighbouring surgeries, which changes the income case and generally strengthens the application.
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Bought on hire purchase, business plant and machinery normally qualifies for capital allowances on the full cost even though you pay for it monthly, which is a large part of why hire purchase is the common structure. On a finance lease you generally set the rentals against profit instead. The rules change between budgets and your position depends on how you trade, so treat this as the direction of travel and get your accountant to confirm the detail before you commit.
Often a proportion can, if the shielding contractor invoices through the equipment supplier or the works sit on the same schedule. Funders limit how much non-recoverable cost they will carry against a hard asset, so the earlier we see the full quote the better the chance of getting the whole project into one facility.
Not to get an approval, but it will usually be a condition before funds are released. Underwriters ask because a scanner that cannot legally be switched on generates no income. Having your radiation protection advisor engaged and the critical examination booked keeps the drawdown clean.
That is a practice economics question rather than a finance one, and it turns on your case volume and how much you currently pay per scan. What we can say is that funders assess the application on the practice’s ability to service payments from overall income, not on a projected saving from scans you have not taken yet.
On larger imaging facilities, usually yes, particularly where the company is young or the balance sheet is thin. Some healthcare desks will take a single guarantee from the majority shareholder. Where personal guarantees are a sticking point it is worth telling us at the outset, as appetite on that point varies widely between funders.
Physically it can be moved by the manufacturer, but the agreement will normally require you to tell the funder and get consent before the asset leaves the installed address. That is standard on any fixed installation. Move it quietly and you have technically breached the agreement, which is worth avoiding.
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Not an offer of finance. All finance is subject to status, affordability and lender approval.
Tell us what you’re looking to fund and Conor will come back to you personally — usually the same day.
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