Is Your Office Throwing Money Out With Your Medical Waste?
A doctor’s office faces all types of economic challenges, including being able to meet budget constraints without compromising patient care. Having an efficient medical waste disposal plan for your doctor’s office is one way in which you can cut costs. With the right plan, not only is all medical waste being safely escorted from the source to disposal, it can be done in a way that saves your office money.
One of the problems that a doctor’s office faces with medical waste is staff members not being able to correctly identify it. As a result, items which could be recycled or reused may be thrown away, causing you to waste money on items that could be salvaged. For example, sharps containers are constructed from durable plastic, and can be recycled through a professional medical waste disposal company. This eliminates the need for you to continuously purchase special containers for this type of medical waste.
Proper sizing of biological waste bags and containers will also be able to save your doctor’s office money. Medical waste is not permitted to be in your offices for extended periods of time. Make assessments at the points of collection for medical waste that help determine the right size containers in each area. The price difference for smaller red bags may not seem like much at first, but that money quickly adds up when you start to factor in the weekly need for them.
Effective methods of transporting medical waste through your offices and storing it can help with curbing the cost of cleaning crews in your office. Time and labor are saved by using wheeled carts to transport medical waste if your doctor’s office is large, or picking up red bags from various rooms at the end of the day. Staff members can receive special training from your medical waste disposal provider to help in identifying the different types of receptacles and safely securing them in your storage area until time for a pick up.
One of the most critical ways in which medical waste disposal procedures is helping doctor’s offices save money is by guaranteeing compliance with the law. Multiple government bodies oversee the disposal of biological waste, including OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency. If you or your employees were to be caught not following procedures during a routine inspection, you could be facing serious fines for your facility.
Make sure that the company handling the removal of your medical waste is providing you with monthly manifests of your pick-ups. They too must meet the standards of various government agencies, and practice safe disposal procedures for all different types of medical waste. The manifest they give you monthly should detail what was picked up at your facility, when the pick-up took place, how much medical waste was transported and how it was incinerated at the facility. With those details on file, your office should be able to avoid having to pay any fines.
Take a closer look at your system for medical waste disposal if you are trying to cut spending in your doctor’s office. With the right company to help, you could stand to save thousands of dollars every year.