POCA Forums

I never had any luck reaching him either. Ended up going with another service.

I must be one of the few lucky ones to actually get through to him.  I think our timing was lucky—he ignored us for a while, Moses nudged him, he became responsive for a short time, we managed to get a contract signed and set up service.

So far we’ve had two pick-ups and it’s been painless.  We’ve had left over room, so some of our front-deskers who are students usually throw in their extra sharps.  Next pick-up another local clinic will add their sharps to ours and will pay me in beer. 

So, it sounds like it’s time to contact Stericycle and ask for a new sales rep.  Dump this dude, he’s useless.

and maybe link to the survey totals. Any rep worth their salt should jump at this chance.

I’m in the process of setting up an account with Stericycle. I spoke with Tara Monroe and heard that Rick Barnhill has a new position within the company. Tara called me next business day and was very helpful. Turns out their offices are located very close to me. Anyway, she gave me a quote which she said included the discount. They charge a flat rate for each pickup of a box which they’re going to supply. My previous company charged less per pickup, but then weighed my box and charged based on that. For me, it comes out to about the same cost. You can reach Tara directly at 847-943-6861.

Would it be possible to get a sense from current Stericycle users if they are happy with said company’s services? 

I’m looking at options in our neck of the woods (already posted in the NE Node on this topic) and was told by a Stericycle competitor to be weary of Stericycle’s business methods, e.g., overbilling, raising rates while you are locked into a contract.  Indeed, the small print of the Stericycle quote I received states that contract runs for 36 months during which time they reserve to increase fees.

He also suggested that I Google Stericycle and lawsuits.  It is not pretty.

Please share your experiences!

Thanks,
Marie

I haven’t had any problems with their service and it’s actually quite convenient and inexpensive for us. We get pick-ups 3 x a year and it costs us about $160 annually. They schedule the pick-ups and send us an invoice after each one.

It was a little bit of work getting our account set up for the right number of pick-ups per year. I am OCD when it comes to filling the sharps containers all the way, but a sharps container full of acupuncture needles is much heavier than regular sharps which often has a lot of plastic in it (syringes, and such). We kept getting charged an over-weight limit fee. But with more pick-ups this doesn’t happen now.

Others have had a hard time connecting to POCA’s contact at Stericycle. I think if you read earlier up this thread there is a bit about that. Maybe even a new contact person besides Rick Barnhill.

What are you Stericycle users currently paying per month? 

With the POCA discount, last year we were billed at $13/month (though we get billed once for the whole year), which was down from $20/month without the discount.  But when I got this year’s invoice it was up to $15.34.  I don’t know if that’s just inflation, or if I should call and try to get back to the $13 price.

FYI, if you signed an agreement with Stericycle a couple of years ago, apparently there was no “price lock”, so your prices may have been going up over the years.  I just talked with Chris .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and he was able to reduce my price to the original agreed upon price of $13/month with only 7% increases each year.  I did have to sign a 5-year agreement (yikes) that I won’t use any other waste disposal company in the meantime.  So if your bill has gone up, it might be worthwhile sending Chris an email.

great thread.  emily, thanks for the new contact name.  cris, I appreciate your giving us your quote.  I was quoted by rick a while back at $16/month with additional fees that come to around $22 per month.  that’s about $272 per year.  YIKES!

gonna try the Emily’s rep and see if they can give me a similar deal to hers.  emily, was your $13 per month with additional fees?

is everyone using stericycle still satisfied?

  Stericycle in the news

“Similar suits have been filed in Pennsylvania, California, Florida and Illinois, according to Stericycle’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The suits arose after the state of New York settled whistleblower allegations against Stericycle brought by a former employee.

The employee, Jennifer Perez, said she witnessed Stericycle “routinely adding undisclosed charges to its customers’ bills” and without justification.

Since its founding in 1989, Stericycle has come to dominate the medical waste market through acquisitions. It now has 522,000 customers worldwide. The majority are dental offices and outpatient clinics such as the Hair Restoration Center of Utah.

“Because of Stericycle’s ongoing acquisitions, customers and potential customers had very few options for alternative waste removal companies,” the hair center’s suit states. “Stericycle does not inform customers that, despite the original contract agreement, it will automatically add unauthorized fees and surcharges to each invoice.”

There are some other anecdotes posted on the web from dental offices and the like who had a bad experience with Stericycle, but when it comes to multiple states filing class action law suits, I think that it starts to be a concern for me.  (As much as I love supporting businesses who support POCA!...)