Vivarium Billing Models for Core Facilities
Core facility vivarium billing involves several components:
Per-diem charges: The base daily rate per cage covers animal housing, husbandry, food, bedding, and environmental monitoring. Rates vary by species and cage type (standard, IVC, metabolic, large animal).
Service charges: Specialized services like genotyping, colony breeding management, surgical procedures, and health monitoring are billed separately at per-unit rates.
Tier discounts: High-volume investigators often receive graduated discounts to incentivize facility utilization and ensure fixed costs are distributed across a larger census.
Subsidies and credits: Faculty startup packages, department cost-share agreements, and institutional subsidies reduce the PI's out-of-pocket costs. These must be tracked and reconciled against funding sources.
Billing reconciliation: Monthly or quarterly billing cycles require cage census snapshots, service logs, and discount calculations for each PI. Discrepancies between projected and actual census are common pain points.