Medical Waste Disposal Quote
Kevin Noel
The Key to Reducing Medical Waste Disposal Costs in California
There are a variety of things to keep in mind when trying to cut costs, but compliance should always be at the forefront of your medical waste operations.
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The Key to Reducing Medical Waste Disposal Costs in California
Medical waste disposal is not necessarily expensive, but it certainly can be if you do not make it a priority.
There are a variety of things to keep in mind when trying to cut costs, but compliance should always be at the forefront of your medical waste operations.
1. Be knowledgeable on California’s medical waste laws
Knowing the requirements of California medical waste can help you save on medical waste disposal costs. Are you disposing of your medical waste more frequently than you need to?
For example, you may be getting medical waste disposal pickups every week when you would be compliant getting serviced monthly.
If you are a California facility generating less than 20 pounds of biohazard waste per month - you could switch to monthly pickups and reduce your costs instantly (assuming you have the space in your designated accumulation area).
Each stream of waste has a required disposal timeline outlined in the California Medical Waste Management Act, and if you are opting into a more frequent pickup schedule, it may be costing you extra on your medical waste disposal costs.
2. When was the last time you looked into a new medical waste service
Medical waste disposal costs vary from company to company.
Eco Medical offers medical waste disposal in California, and there have been healthcare facilities who saved over 85% (Almost $200,000) on their medical waste disposal costs for the exact same services.
If your company has long term contracts, it could be time to ask yourself why they want to lock you in for such a long time period.
3. Waste Segregation
Because medical waste can contain potentially infectious materials, it must be sterilized before disposal - which is more expensive than disposing of regular waste.
If you are placing regular trash inside with your red bag waste, you may be inflating disposal costs.
Hazardous waste is the most expensive waste to dispose of - if you are disposing of non-hazardous pharmaceuticals as hazardous, this will certainly impact your bill.
Things that can help ensure you are properly segregating waste include proper and consistent employee training, color coding your medical waste containers, and making all containers easily accessible to staff.
4. Perform waste audits
You should regularly perform waste audits to ensure you are keeping costs low and acting in compliance with California and federal medical waste regulations.
Waste audits can help you find deficiencies and assign and track corrective actions.
5. Consider having a walk through
If you are a facility generating a lot of medical waste, a California medical waste disposal service may be open to offering a walk through and helping you to lower costs.
This is something that we have offered and can be very successful in cutting costs while maintaining compliance.
6. Have a formal medical waste management plan
Having and regularly updating your medical waste management plan can be huge for making improvements.
Following a formal plan is typically more effective than just winging it, and a medical waste management plan is no exception.
In your plan, you can set targets for reducing your regulated medical waste as well as outline how medical waste disposal will be handled.
We used to use a National Company but they just kept jacking our fees up all the time. We switched to Eco Medical Waste and they cut our invoices in half.
Eco Medical Waste is always professional and timely. We appreciate their business and services.
Let’s get started
We offer medical waste disposal and management in all of California. Eco Medical was founded in far Northern California and has rapidly expanded to cover the entirety of California.
