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Annual Compliance Programs

You have already made the commitment .  A radioactive materials license is a necessary part of your operation, whether you are:

  • A nuclear medicine practice
  • A small-scale university research or teaching program
  • A focused industrial operation

However, even though your firm is small and has limited operating resources, you have no choice but to comply with the same Federal or State regulations and license requirements that bind your larger-scale competitors and counterparts (e.g., hospitals, broad-scope research operations, radiation source manufacturers, etc.).  It is still up to you to ensure compliance with applicable regulations and license requirements, or suffer the consequences of regulatory enforcement action,  loss of your good reputation, monetary fines/penalties and even the termination of the license that you worked so hard to secure.

Unfortunately, compliance doesn’t come cheap.  If your operation is not part of a major organization with a dedicated radiation safety staff or in-house qualifications in the areas of radiation protection and license compliance, the chances are the head of your business or practice is serving as the Radiation Safety Officer.  In that role, that valuable corporate contributor is also responsible for all of the following and more:

  • Ensuring an effective, implementable and streamlined license is in place that meets the letter of the law without obliging you to unnecessary commitments.
  • Ensuring your radiation protection program will guarantee the radiation safety of you, your employees, your visitors and your contractors.
  • Performing and documenting routine ambient and contamination surveys in your radiologically-restricted areas.
  • Ensuring the instruments used to do your routine surveys are calibrated and used appropriately and on schedule.
  • Providing internal , external and area radiation monitoring, as required, to ensure you are able to demonstrate compliance with your regulatory dose limits for occupational workers and members of the public.
  • Receiving radioactive materials or radiopharmaceuticals from suppliers safely and compliance with your license requirements and those promulgated by the U. S. Department of Transportation.
  • Performing a physical inspection and leak testing your sealed radiation sources on the schedule specified in your license.
  • Providing initial and refresher radiation safety training for your employees, contractors and visitors.
  • Providing initial and refresher authorized user training for those individuals responsible for supervising the use of radioactive materials at your facility.
  • Managing all radioactive waste generated by your operation or practice.
  • Ensuring the quality of all instruments used to assess radionuclides administered to patients.
  • Verifying that all of your restricted areas and radionuclide storage locations are posted/labeled appropriately.
  • Preparing all of the necessary reports and documents that accompany a radioactive materials license.
  • And most importantly, demonstrating to the satisfaction of your regulator that all of the above were done on time and exactly as you committed to do them when your license was issued.

There are alternatives, however.  You can hire a full-time health physicist to take care of these requirements for you, although this would be an expensive proposition for a radioactive materials program with such a limited scope. Alternatively, you might want to train one of your own office or technician staff members to schedule, perform, document and defend what needs to be done, although that would take them away from their primary responsibilities and it forces you to rely on an individual with little – if any! – fundamental knowledge of radiation- and compliance-related matters to keep on top of your program for you.  And then there is the worst case scenario where you need to take your valuable time away from facility management, patient care or business development to do the work necessary for ensuring your firm meets the letter of your license. In all cases, your costs and potential liabilities can be excessive.

There is a fourth alternative that can not only ensure a spotless compliance record, it will free up the valuable time of you and your staff and reduce your compliance costs and liabilities to a practical minimum.  That alternative is the Plexus-NSD ‘Annual Compliance Program’.  This program, developed and implemented by individuals who are Certified by the American Board of Health Physics and Registered by the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists, is tailor-made for firms like yours with tight operating budgets, limited support staff, and the desire to maintain a program that is as technically- and legally-sound as those of your larger competitors.

If Plexus-NSD’s ‘Annual Compliance Program’ sounds like it might provide you with relief from your escalating regulatory costs and demands, simply Contact Us. An Plexus-NSD Certified Health Physicist will work with you to provide you with a firm, fixed price for scheduling and delivery of all of your license compliance needs. Alternatively, you may wish to print, complete and return for proposal our Compliance Services Request Sheet. There is, of course, no cost or obligation associated with our firm, fixed-price quotation that we will send you shortly after we receive you request.  However, when you compare it to your current quality of service and the cost for its implementation, we are confident you will be pleasantly surprised.  We hope you will take us up on our offer to let you get back to doing what you do best while saving money in the long run.