Practice Smarter

At some point, you might want to roll back changes you made because of the pandemic. In the meantime, remember to update your fees regularly and re-engage clients with whom you lost touch.

The worst of the COVID-19 pandemic hopefully is behind us. Things were so crazy over the past year and a half that many veterinary practices did all they could to survive and keep up with the constant changes. As we start to return to some form of normal, now might be a good time to […]

At some point, you might want to roll back changes you made because of the pandemic. In the meantime, remember to update your fees regularly and re-engage clients with whom you lost touch.

I often wondered over the past year when I would be able to write this article, but today I see signs of optimism. What will life look like when we are out of the pandemic, and how must we adapt to the reality that follows? First, let’s take a quick look back. Although COVID-19 took […]

You owe it to yourself and your practice to price veterinary services appropriately and profitably.

A recent Veterinary Hospital Managers Association survey revealed: 12% of the responding practices will not increase their fees in 2021. 16% will increase fees on non-shopped services only. 64% will increase fees on both shopped and non-shopped services. I found the results a little surprising. Your fee schedule is the lifeblood of your practice. Your […]

Fine-tune how your hospital is run so that you don’t have to work so hard.

A great catchphrase is: “Practice smarter, not harder.” But what does it mean exactly? Here’s what veterinarians and practices can do to bring the concept to life. Leverage Your Team Leveraging has to do with the number of full-time support staff you have compared with the number of full-time doctors. The “normal” practice has a […]

Veterinary teams deserve more than a paycheck. Employees need to know the financials, be thanked, and hear what they can do to improve the practice’s performance and their own.

Going into the pandemic, I expected that veterinary hospitals would be financially devastated. Clients would not bring in their pets, practices would close and employees would be let go. Well, I could not have been more wrong. Veterinary practices are doing very well financially. In fact, many are seeing increases in income like never before. […]

Sure, veterinary practices are super busy, but curtly turning away emergency cases or making pet owners endure long, silent waits won’t endear clients to your hospital. Video or audio visits, anyone?

My 18-month-old, love-of-my-life Great Dane rescue dog broke his leg. Ben was playing in the backyard and caught his right front leg in something, causing a greenstick fracture of his distal radius. This happened in the early afternoon, so I called the veterinary practice where we have been a client for over a year. Now, […]

A client bonding rate of 60% is nothing to celebrate. Use surveys, mystery shoppers, reminders and other tactics to get pet owners to come back to your clinic time after time.

When I present seminars, I talk about all the financial information that can be gleaned from practice management software, but do you know which benchmark I consider most important? Your practice’s bonding rate — the rate of return of clients within 18 months of their last visit. It’s your practice’s success rate. You might know […]

COVID-19 forced veterinary practices to forgo clinic walk-ins and instead move to parking lot transfers. You can make such non-traditional interactions even better for the client.

If you had told me a few months ago that I would walk into a grocery store and see bare shelves, or that I would be required to stay home and wear a mask when I go outside, I would have said you were out of your mind. Yet, that is our new reality as […]

Practice owners, just like their staff, deserve fair compensation. Revenue is key, of course, but you can increase it by regularly adjusting your fee schedules and eliminating giveaways.

I find very disturbing something that is occurring in our profession. It’s practice owners paying their associates more than they pay themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong. I want associate veterinarians to be paid more, and I want all team members to be paid more. Everyone in the veterinary profession has long been underpaid, in […]

All hospitals need an occasional health check. Dive into the numbers, inspect the surroundings and review your digital presence to discover what ails your practice.

Veterinarians recommend that clients bring in their pets at least once a year for a comprehensive physical exam, so maybe it’s time we practice what we preach. When was the last time you did a comprehensive review of your practice and its management? Many practices schedule retreats around the beginning of the year, bringing the […]