Business Shredding Services Will Save Your Company Money

Business Shredding Services

With the economy being volatile, all companies are insecure about their financial status. There are many ways to reduce expenses and increase profits, but most companies overlook their everyday expenses which tend to add up! Adjusting to smarter business practices can help companies be more effective in budgeting and help prevent excess energy waste.

For instance, to save electricity, computer usage can be reduced drastically if machines are shut down at the end of the day. To save on office supplies, making the switch to electric hand dryers can save a lot of money as well. One other important way to save is to hire business shredding services. Not only will this choice will restore your employees’ productivity, it can also protect confidentiality and ensure your business is compliant with federal privacy laws.

A small office shredder does not allow you to destroy paper in large volumes and there are maintenance costs you will spend on such a machine. Professional document shredding companies provide on-demand services and you’ll be paying less because of the larger volume they can handle at one time.

Business shredding services bring many financial advantages that are unseen. Selecting business shredding services that are reliable and secure will be crucial. A simple office shredder will not destruct your documents properly and will ultimately reduce employee productivity, keeping them from more strategic tasks.

It’s not clear why businesses allow their employees to be distracted by time-consuming administrative tasks. Hiring a business shredding service will keep productivity at the level it should be and it will save the company time and money.

There are also compliance requirements that must be adhered for shredding confidential information. Not remaining in compliance could significantly increase the risks of fines and legal actions against the company. This is another reason why document destruction is necessary. Sensitive or confidential information is governed by laws for archived documents and their destruction. Data falling into the wrong hands is not something any business wants to deal with. Confidential data that is not currently being used should be shredded and disposed of.

When you hire business shredding services, their trucks will come to your location for more convenient document destruction. Most of these services are mobile, and their mobility allows them to do the work more efficiently and securely. The remaining waste should also be handled in a secure manner so that there is no risk of identity theft or costly fines.

Every business should understand that hiring a professional shredding service will not only protect sensitive data and ensure regulatory compliance, it will also help reduce costs over time. The significant cost savings is more valuable than you can imagine.

IntelliShred has been helping customers with business shredding services for many years. We value our customers and can guarantee a successful business relationship. Our fleet of mobile trucks will be able to handle the destruction and disposal of large volumes of paper and other media storage devices.

4 Ways Business Shredding Services Can Save You Money

Have you ever stopped to think about how much paper your company uses on a regular basis? As much as many business owners would like to go without paper, it’s a necessity. If you’re a conscientious business owner, then you know how important it is to properly dispose of documents containing sensitive information.

In fact, you probably have one or two shredders in your office right now. Have you ever stopped to think about opting for business shredding services instead of doing it yourself? Read on to learn how business shredding services can help you save money!

1. Increase Employee Efficiency

Shredding might seem like a fairly straightforward task. After all, it only takes a minute or two to shred a few pages of paper. Over time, however, those minutes add up.

The average administrative assistant makes almost $17 per hour in New Jersey, or about $35,000 per year if they’re full-time. Would you rather spend that money on simple tasks like shredding, or would you rather spend it on tasks that actually advance your business, like communicating with customers?

Hiring business shredding services helps maximize the efficiency of your business and boost your profits.

2. Save Space

Many businesses have a dedicated space in their office for both the shredder and the pile of paper that needs to be shredded. Have you ever stopped to think about how much space you’re losing by doing all of your shredding in-house? 

Professional shredding services come and pick up your shredding on a regular basis, so you don’t have to worry about a stack of papers getting out of control or housing multiple shredders throughout your office. This frees up more space to accomplish more business-related tasks!

3. Protect Sensitive Information

Most businesses have to deal with some form of sensitive information. At a minimum, you’ll be handling things like credit card information, account numbers, and customer data. The cost of that information accidentally getting exposed is steep.

That cost increases exponentially when you’re dealing with laws like HIPAA. A single violation could cost you $25,000 and cause you to lose customers.

Professional shredding services destroy information in a secure manner, giving you peace of mind.

4. Save On Equipment

Depending on the size of your business, you’d need two more shredders to accomplish a large shredding task. Not only do you have to pay for that equipment upfront, but you have to pay to make sure it’s properly maintained. On top of that, if the shredder fails, you might have to buy new equipment.

Professional business shredding services save you a ton on equipment costs!

There Are Many Benefits of Business Shredding Services!

Many business owners might think of business shredding services as an added expense. The truth is, the benefits of business shredding services far outweigh the costs, and they can actually save you money. If you’re trying to keep costs down, then you should definitely opt for a professional business paper shredding service!

Are you looking for a New Jersey business shredding service? Look no further! Contact IntelliShred today to learn how we can help you boost your security and reduce your expenses!

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there’s no set amount of time in which a medical practice must hold onto a patient’s records. However, you’ll find that if you keep them too long, they will start to pile up and take up space in your office.

When you reach that point, it becomes time-consuming to get them shredded. For this reason, you need to find HIPAA-compliant medical records shredding services. At Intellishred, we have plenty of options so that you can find a service that best suits your practice. Keep reading as we breakdown the types of assistance we have to offer.

Why Do You Need HIPAA Compliant Medical Records Shredding Services?

Unfortunately, the process of cleaning out old medical records isn’t as simple as tossing them in the garbage. Doing so is risky, as an unauthorized person could see a patient’s personal information—like their social security number, birth date, and medical information.

HIPAA forbids the improper disclosure of medical records, and a patient could sue you for it. That is why hiring a service to destroy them is crucial.

Patients Trust

In the modern world of recycling, trash hauled away in a trash truck is often sorted for recycling and hence is likely to pass through several hands before it is destroyed. This can expose the highly sensitive personal information contained in the records.

Hiring IntelliShred will provide you with customized shredding solutions that ensure the medical records are disposed of correctly. This helps to maintain patients trust and complete confidentiality.

Disclosure and Non-Compliance Cost Reduction

Over the last three decades, there has been a consistent rise in the number of compliance requirements with which hospitals, practitioners and others who offer medical services are required to comply. Failure to comply with these laws could make your business suffer from negative publicity, face lawsuit liabilities, or even make your company liable for legal fees.

Seeking the medical records shredding services from the pros eliminates the assumption out of understanding the federal and privacy regulations so you can focus on your clients.

Money Saving

Having an internal shredding program for your company can be very expensive. Usually, the costs spread from utility expenses, replacing inoperable equipment, performing maintenance, buying disposal bags, not to mention purchasing shredders. Outsourcing services from an established onsite/offsite document shredding company contribute significantly to lowering expenses.

Types Of Destruction & Shredding Services

It is critically important to hire a reputable shredding provider to dispose of the records considering the sensitivity of the information in medical documents and the state guidelines on medical records shredding (see our article on HIPAA shredding).

Document Destruction

When you have physical documents that contain confidential information, the best way to get rid of them is to put them through a shredder. There is no way to recover them afterward.

The best part about Intellishred is that we come to you and destroy all your documents on-site. Therefore, you can witness the process to ensure that patient records are disposed of properly. We have two different document destruction services:

• One-time shredding
• Regularly scheduled shredding service

You can choose one based on how fast the documents in your office pile up. It’s more cost-efficient, and it is easy to switch from a one-time shred to a regularly scheduled shredding service if you need it.

E-Waste Services

As digital medical records have become more customary in the past fifteen years, you might have former patient records on old computers or hard drives. Getting rid of them isn’t as simple as putting them through a shredder, but we’ve still got you covered.

After picking up the electronic devices from your office and putting them in a locked storage container, we’ll bring them back to our site to demolish any confidential data stored on them. The parts that don’t hold any information get recycled because being environmentally conscious is one of our top priorities.

Product Destruction

On top of medical records, you may have defective, recalled, or outdated products around the office that might need disposing of too. If so, our employees will take care of that for you by picking them up and securely transporting them to the site where we trash and recycle parts based on state and federal laws.

How Medical Shredding Services Protect You

Whether you work in a hospital, clinic, pharmacy or nursing home, there’s tons of sensitive data in your computers and filing cabinets. To keep organized, you’ll need to dispose of this information following HIPAA guidelines. With help from IntelliShred’s medical shredding services, you can save time, money and your patients’ privacy.

Paper Documents

HIPAA shredding guidelines demand that every medical facility “must implement reasonable safeguards to limit incidental, and avoid prohibited, uses and disclosures of PHI (Protected Health Information), including in connection with the disposal of such information.” This means that records must not only be stored properly, but destroyed properly, as well.

Using a store-bought paper shredder does not protect against identity theft. Often, information like names, addresses, and social security numbers are left intact or are easily put together from improper medical record disposal. 

Before destroying documents on-site, you must train employees in how to shred medical records and give them time to do it. With everything else that must be done in a medical facility, this can be a time-consuming process. If not done correctly, your practice could face up to a $50,000 fine per violation of patient confidentiality.

Hiring IntelliShred saves your practice from having to invest money in training and equipment for document destruction. Because it’s our job to keep up with ever-changing compliance laws, we keep you within all document destruction regulations.

E-Waste Disposal

For computer data, hard drives must be completely destroyed for total security. Merely throwing them away or beating them with a hammer leaves them open to anyone with computer hardware knowledge.

At IntelliShred, our team will securely transport all hard drives and dispose of them properly. By physically shredding electronic components, there will be no data left for criminals to recover.

The Danger of Doing Nothing

In 2020, losses from identity theft in the US totaled $712.4 billion. That’s an increase of 42% from the previous year. These losses come from multiple sources including documents found in trash cans and data scoured from computer files.

Your practice’s computer network could be full of old data that can be lucrative to hackers. Even if your facility’s dumpster is secure, loose documents can end up anywhere in between the building and recycling centers. Once hard drives and records are out of your facility, there is no guarantee of security if mixed in with regular waste.

Fortunately, IntelliShred’s technicians prevent this from happening. After your documents are gathered into one of our secure trash cans, we will destroy them in a specially-equipped shredding truck. We promise on-time services that won’t disrupt your busy day.

Get Rid of Those Unnecessary Medical Records Today

Now there’s no need to stress out about finding HIPAA compliant medical records shredding services. As a member of the National Association for Information Destruction, IntelliShred has served the tri-state area for over twenty years.

We’ll destroy your data safely and efficiently. Plus, if we’re not on time, we’ll shred it for free. Reach out to one of our representatives to start using our HIPAA compliant services.

Paper Shredding Cost

It’s normal for businesses to want to save as much money as possible, but not everyone looks at the smaller expenses that really add up – like paper shredding cost. Most often, businesses of all sizes tend to rely on small, individual office shredders. They believe those small machines are efficient and can do the important job of protecting the confidential information of their clients, customers or patients in a cost-effective way.

Little do they know, if they added up all the money spent on using such a small shredding machine, they would realize that it’s not cost-effective at all. Not only are some of those machines too small to handle large volumes of paper, but they are expensive to maintain as well. In some cases, the maintenance on the machine may cost a lot more than simply purchasing a brand new one.

It’s possible that your employees are trustworthy, but it could be quite risky to allow them to decide what should be thrown in the trash and what should be shredded. If important information gets discarded and shredded properly, you could face the wrath of identity theft or suffer fines and penalties for not remaining compliant. It’s clear that shredded paper from a small office shredder can be easily put back together. Busy employees may not be consistent in their shredding and allow paper to stack up on their desk. There are great costs associated with these mistakes.

Here’s an estimate based on a typical office with 5 employees. The boss decides to purchase a small office shredder for his employees. He asks the employees to routinely perform the office shredding. The boss thinks he’s saving money and time by having his staff handle shredding. After the cost of the shredder, it’s estimated that the paper shredding cost could average to $100 per month – that’s $1,200 per year! This would of course include any employee labor and machine maintenance costs.

Breakdown of Monthly Paper Shredding Costs:

Maintenance                                                     $3.00
Garbage Bags                                                   $4.00
Depreciation/Replacement of Machine       $3.00
Employee Labor Costs                                    $87.00

 TOTAL $97.00 Per Month

This amount of money does not account for a Certificate of Destruction that needs to be on file, for the time spent cleaning up the mess or for a vast amount of lost productivity.

Additionally, if you choose to shred your documents in-house, here are some of the issues and risks your business could face:

• Employees may not be consistent in their use of shredders
• There is no proof of compliance with shredding regulations
• Self-shredded material could be carelessly tossed into the trash
• Certain sensitive information should not be handled by employees
• Removing binder clips, paper clips, sticky notes, rubber bands is not productive
• Office shredders can’t handle large volumes of paper at once
• Office shredders are slow, inefficient, and break down easily

Security and Maintenance

A study published by The American Journal of Managed Care concluded that paper records were the moon factors for data breaches. Human error is a prime example of a crack in the data barrier that criminals can penetrate to gain sensitive information in any industry. This means that in-house shredding machines are highly susceptible to human error and only adds to your paper shredding cost. How often have you found sensitive documents that didn’t get shredded or accidentally thrown into the trash? 

Utilizing a paper shredding company eliminates all potential for human error, so you and your clients stay protected. The best shredding services adhere to compliant procedures that ensure that consumer information remains protected. It’s understandable why people think purchasing a paper shredder will save their business money. And even though the best shredders can drive a hole through your wallet, you can easily purchase one for under $100. 

However, average and expensive shredders still incur maintenance costs such as:

• Shredder oil
• Shredder bags
• Sharpening blades
• Removing dust and debris
• Fixing paper jams
• Potential permanent damage

As such, you might find that the great deal you found on Amazon costing you significantly more money than using a shredding service. 

Labor and Time Paper Shredding Cost

The saying “time is money” can apply to any business. And any time spent preparing paperwork to destroy is money lost. For example, you have to remove any non-paper items, separate each document, feed the paper, empty the bin, and clean up. If you have a significant amount of paperwork to destroy, this can take up a considerable portion of your day. The time your employees spend shredding documents is time they could be making sales. In addition to all the wasted time cleaning and maintaining your shredder, you have to consider the cost to get a Certificate of Destruction on file. Overall, the average cost of shredding in-house amounts to approximately $100 or more per month. And that’s not including the consequences of losing or mistakenly mishandling your client’s sensitive information. 

Using a Service

You can keep your overall paper shredding cost low without losing productivity in the office. When you look to hire a professional shredding company, it’s to your advantage to ensure that they’re NAID AAA Certified. If the company has this certification, you can be confident that the company will remain compliant with all shredding and privacy regulations. Paper shredding and destruction is a much more complicated process that can save you time and money in your business’ lifetime if done correctly. 

It’s much more cost-effective to utilize a professional shredding company with regular scheduled shredding services. It not only saves you time and money, it will protect your business information from getting into the wrong hands. Be sure to hire a NAID AAA Certified mobile shredding company so that you will remain compliant with privacy and shredding regulations. IntelliShred has been servicing the tri-state area for over two decades. We’re here to answer any questions you may have about shredding and destruction. Get in touch with our specialists at IntelliShred for any questions or information about how we can best serve you.