Jill Mortali <Jill=Mortali%RSRCHADM%xxxxxx@BANYAN.UMMED.EDU> writes:

>The University of Massachusetts Medical Center does not currently charge
>sponsored projects directly for hazardous waste disposal and pays for this
>service out of overhead money.  However, we are beginning to discuss
>implementing a direct charge for this service.  I would be interested to hear
>about how other institutions are handling the charges (direct vs. indirect),
>what are your rates and what are they based upon, and what are the potential
>pitfalls of direct charging.   Any information that you can give me is
>greatly appreciated.

A topic near and dear to my heart!  And one which I suspect a lot of schools
are reviewing as cost containment becomes a reality.

UCONN HC does not charge research users at the moment, and as does UMASS MC,
we allocate the non-clinical care piece of radsafety and environmental safety
to our IDC base.

I would add a few questions to Jill's, for those schools who may have recently
shifted to charging paradigms for hazwaste:

 1.  Was it done because of cost containment of the research
 infrastructure, or for some other reason, e.g., keeping the IDC rate
 down?  I'm thinking about it simply for the cost contaiment value.

 2.  Was it done all at once, or phased in?

 3.  What was the impact on research grants, which did not have to pay
 for such services out of direct costs, and all of a sudden had to?

 4.  Did the cost shifting result in any change in compliance behavior?

 5.  If the policy change was driven by a need to reduce IDC rates, what
 was the impact of pulling hazwaste out of the IDC base?

 6.  What's included in hazwaste disposal charging algorithm?  At UCONN
 HC it includes the entire radsafety program, hazmat disposal,
 regulated medical waste.

 7.  If you switched over recently, does your radsafety disposal pgm
 include in-compact disposal (or plans for it), or are you storing
 radwaste on-site?  We currently store radwaste on-site, and CT has no
 in-compact LLRW disposal plans for the foreseeable future.

Timely topic!

Len

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Leonard P. Paplauskas    Assistant Vice President for Research     |
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