How Much Does Medical Waste Disposal Cost?

How much does medical waste disposal cost? This is a question we get often. You may be wondering if you’re being overcharged for your service. You may be considering opening a new practice or adding a location and are wondering what the cost of medical waste disposal would be.

There are a lot of variables involved in the pricing for disposing of medical waste. Let’s take a closer look.

Factors that affect regulated medical waste disposal costs:

Location
Volume
Frequency
and more

Location

There are two main reasons:

Regulations: When addressing regulations it is fairly simple. Certain states have regulations on how long you can store infectious waste at your facility. Some states even require this waste to be picked up as often as monthly whether or not your container is full at the time.
Logistics: Are there other facilities in your area who are using the same service?

Consider these two scenarios:

Scenario #1: The medical waste truck drives 10 miles out to your facility, 15 miles to another facility, 25 miles to a farther away facility, and at this point has to drive 50 miles back to the treatment plant.

Scenario #2: The medical waste truck heads out for a day of picking up biohazardous waste. The truck drives 15 miles to a facility. After picking up the waste the truck drives less than a mile to the next facility. At this facility the truck parks outside and services 3 or 4 practices in one location without ever moving the truck.

Looking at these two scenarios, it’s obvious that scenario #2 is much more efficient and will cut down on multiple costs including gas and time to service multiple facilities.

For biohazard waste removal service near you, see our medical waste pickup locations.

Volume & Frequency

When considering volume it is important to look at how appropriate your service is in comparison to your needs. If you are getting containers picked up that are only halfway or a quarter of the way full, you are not being serviced properly.

In terms of frequency, a truck could drive 10 miles each way to your facility every week to pick up one container, totaling 80 miles each month. Or, the truck come once per month and pick up 4 boxes at once, totaling only 20 miles of driving.

Type of Waste

Depending on the types of waste you have that you need to dispose of at your facility, separate types of services may be needed.

For example, pharmaceutical waste needs to be disposed of separately from your regular medical waste. In addition, some wastes like trace chemotherapy cannot be autoclaved and need to be disposed of in a different way at a different facility. This facility may be farther away and require more gas and time to transport.

Other Factors

Here are some costs of biohazardous waste disposal:

Insurance: you should have a company with appropriate insurance coverage for transporting and disposing of waste. If the cost for one company is significantly lower than others, improper insurance may be to blame.
Training/Safety: many facilities get their OSHA compliance and safety training from their medical waste disposal company. This can, however, add to the total cost.
Number of Services: for example, if you do choose to add OSHA training to your medical waste service there may be a “bundle” option that can help you save more.
Customer Service: is there a real person there to answer your call when you have a question? This person does need to be paid. Having a great customer service and operations team behind your service adds a little to the cost.
Storage Ability: do you have the ability to store containers of waste (abiding by regulations of course) to get pickups less frequently? You may, you may not. This can alter the cost of service as well.
Proper Waste Segmentation: are you and your employees properly trained to put only medical waste in the RMW containers? If you’re adding regular trash unnecessarily you may be contributing to a higher cost of service because you have more waste that needs to be disposed of.

So, What is the Average Cost of Service?

Medical waste costs depend on a lot of variables. Medical waste disposal service should be flexible enough to fit your specific needs and with so many options, prices can vary.

Remember, each difference that comes into play is a key factor in determining cost and once you thoroughly examine the variables at play, you can get an accurate quote on your service.

With MedPro, you can save up to 30% on your medical waste disposal services.

Use our free quote calculator to get a free quote on your biohazard waste disposal services today!