Cost Versus Value In Your Medical Cleaning

With cleaning hospitals, cleaning medical offices or other healthcare facilities, there is a significant difference between cost and value. Essentially, cost is what you are paying, value is what you are getting. While cost is certainly a factor you must consider when contracting with a medical cleaning service, it can't be the only consideration. Furthermore, it is value that is most important because it brings together the three key factors: 

1. What you need
2. What you get
3. What you pay

A low price is great, but if you aren’t getting what you need to keep your medical facility running smoothly and in compliance, that low low janitorial price means nothing. Now it would be so easy of higher medical cleaning bids precisely correlated to the best service but this isn’t any truer than lowest price is the best price. Unfortunately, when it comes to healthcare cleaning services, price isn’t the best indicator of effective service or value. For value, the key is to understand precisely what you are getting for your janitorial budget. Then you can compare quotes to find which medical office cleaning company is offering you the most services for your cleaning dollar. The truth is that to effectively choose a medical cleaning company, you as a Facility Manager must have good and accurate information, and not all hospital cleaning companies are going to make that available. That lack of clear pricing/service information can be the starting point of weeding out those hospital cleaning services that either don’t understand how to price their services accurately or simply don’t want you to make an informed decision. The best healthcare cleaning companies are committed to the highest level of professionalism and service and therefore, want you to understand where your money is going. Transparent pricing allows you to know what it is going to cost to get you and your facility the needed services. This in turn allows you to compare medical cleaning companies in a meaningful way. Likewise, clear medical cleaning pricing helps you hold your health care cleaning company accountable to the work they promised because you understand what that is.

Getting Solid Value From Your Medical Office Cleaning Services

When you are searching for medical janitorial services, value is paramount. And value, quality and effective healthcare cleaning services are not likely to come from the cheapest bid. And yet, they won’t necessarily come from the most expensive bid either. So how should you choose between competing hospital cleaning bids? Brian Mamo, Director of Business Development at Stathakis offers some insight:

• Janitorial pricing can be all over the place-- well below cost, way above market and everything in between. This can be a function of inexperienced start-ups or future up charging.
• When medical cleaning prices seem exceedingly low, ask yourself why. Excessively low prices are often an indication a company will play games with your pricing down the road or that they engage in illegal hiring in order to keep costs below that of the overall market.
• Arm yourself with an understanding of how medical office cleaning prices are estimated. Check out this article for further information on how janitorial pricing works.
• Consider references from trusted facility and building managers or even other reliable service contractors you work with. 
• Don’t just ask any cleaning company for a bid on healthcare cleaning. It is simply too specialized and requires a company experienced in cleaning hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Only accept medical cleaning bids from established commercial cleaning companies that offer the experience and systems required to deliver on their promises to you.
• Request references and follow up.
• Compare apples to apples. Give prospective medical cleaning companies a standard service specification so you can look at pricing based upon the same services.

Follow these suggestions and you are far more likely to get real value from your hospital environmental services. Additionally, you are more likely to land a medical cleaning contractor that will deliver the level of services you require and compliance in a health care setting.

Does Your Healthcare Cleaning Service Provide Transparent Pricing?

Medical cleaning prices can be confusing but they don’t need to be. Some medical office cleaning services purposely price their services in a way that can make fair comparisons difficult for you as a Facility Manager. Likewise, many less experienced commercial cleaning companies will throw together a bid without really investing the needed time into understanding what you need and what the job requires. Other janitorial service companies just throw out a number and take out extras and fees later on if they guessed wrong. Maybe a prospective healthcare cleaning service just isn’t experienced enough in janitorial services in general and more specifically medical cleaning to know HOW to price the services you and your facility require. No matter why the nonspecific or confusing pricing, it can upend your carefully planned medical facilities budget, raise the cost and diminish the value of what you are getting.

With Medical Cleaning Services Best Value Follows Best Practices

So low cost doesn’t always translate into real value. Why is this the case? Remember, cost is what you pay and value is what you get. The objective in securing medical cleaning services should be to obtain the best clean for the best price. There are a number of best practices that are predictive of value and effective service. These consist of guaranteed responsiveness, the best people for the work, solid training to fit your facility’s unique requirements, a green cleaning program and more. It is probable that you can find superior medical janitorial services that fit both your budget and your needs.

Cheap Health Care Cleaning Services Can Cost You

A low priced medical cleaning bid can be tempting but that old adage of you get what you pay for usually holds water when it comes to super low pricing. Unusually low cleaning bids can point to red flags and potential problems like:

• An inexperienced healthcare cleaning company that wants your facility to be their training ground.
  Overly low pricing can be a sign of illegal workers and/or illegal hiring practices.
• Suspiciously low pricing may also indicate cut corners on things like employee drug and criminal background screening and training.
• And super low pricing can signal a health care cleaning company that will over promise and under deliver. 

And that's not even all of them! There is some important math one must consider in operating profitable medical cleaning companies. If a prospective commercial cleaning company comes in with a very low bid, the chances are something is off somewhere either by accident, omission or by design.

Hospital Environmental Services Require a Very Special Set of Skills

Where health care services are concerned, medical cleaning matters a great deal. It isn’t just enough for things to look clean. There must be actual biological clean, infection control and compliance with any and all pertinent regulatory issues. This is in part why partnering with the right hospital cleaning company is so critical. When considering prospective medical janitorial services, it is prudent have an understanding of the size and types of businesses and industries a commercial cleaning company already serves in order to avoid inexperienced janitorial companies. Ask any prospective company what medical and health care accounts do they currently contract with? How is their training specified to the unique needs of healthcare facilities? How do they attract, screen and manage great people that are a good fit for your facility? What is their understanding of medical compliance issues? These direct questions can help you get a real sense of whether you are working with a seasoned company that can hit the ground running or whether you will have to micromanage your building services contractor to try to get what you need in your facility.

Getting Medical Janitorial Services That Offer Expertise AND Value

You, your facility and its occupants and visitors deserve medical cleaning services that offer effective, healthy cleaning at a real value. Even if you are facing tighter budgets and growing requirements, an experienced medical cleaning company can help secure the greatest value from your janitorial budget. When contemplating a new cleaning service, consider the following. Healthcare cleaning services that offer you clear pricing give you the opportunity to compare quotes in a meaningful way. Transparent pricing lets you look at pricing and janitorial bids in an ‘apples to apples’ way that can allow you to more accurately assess value. Choosing a reputable, professional, trusted medical cleaning service offers the best chance at both real value and the promises of effective service.