Just one thing: Structuring your team for productivity

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Just one thing: Practical tips for veterinary practices

Staffing in a veterinary practice is a crucial lever that can be adjusted to lift productivity. If the ratio of non-veterinarian team members to veterinarians is too high, this will result in people being underutilized, and weigh on the practice’s expenses. But having too few supporting team members may strain—and reduce—your veterinarians’ ability to provide care to patients and clients.

To understand whether you have the optimal ratio of non-veterinarians to veterinarians on your care team, you can compare your practice’s staffing levels against published benchmarks. Tackle this in 15 minutes or less this way:

  1. Count the total number of hours worked by the non-veterinarians on your care team in an average week. Include both full-time and part-time veterinary technicians, veterinary assistants, customer service representatives, and all other employees in the practice, other than veterinarians.
  2. Count the total number of veterinarian hours worked in an average week. Again include both full-time and part-time veterinarians.
  3. Calculate the ratio of non-veterinarian to veterinarian hours by dividing the total support team hours by the veterinarian hours.

Here’s an example

Consider a veterinary practice that has one veterinary technician working 40 hours per week, one veterinary assistant working 35 hours per week, one customer service representative working 35 hours per week, one kennel assistant working 20 hours per week, and one practice manager working 30 hours per week; this sums to a total of 160 hours worked per week by the non-veterinarians in the practice. 

This practice also has one veterinarian, working 40 hours per week. That means we can divide the 160 non-veterinarian team hours by the 40 veterinarian hours, and we find that the practice’s non-veterinarian to veterinarian staff ratio is 4 to 1.

How do you compare?

Once you’ve calculated your practice’s ratio, you can then assess it against published benchmarks. 

One recent example used data from the AVMA’s 2024 Practice Owners Survey and was presented at the 2024 Veterinary Economics and Business Forum by Frederic Ouedraogo PhD and Dr. Peter Weinstein. They looked at companion and mixed animal hospitals with the highest revenue per full-time-equivalent veterinarian, and found that the optimal ratio of non-veterinarian team members to veterinarians was 5 to 1. In other words, each full-time-equivalent veterinarian was most efficiently supported by between four and five other full-time-equivalent veterinary team members.

They also found these optimal ratios for specific team members:

  • Veterinary technicians to veterinarians: 1 to 1
  • Veterinary assistants to veterinarians: 2 to 1

While these ratios were found to be optimal from the research conducted, it’s also important to recognize that every veterinary practice is unique. Factors within your practice may mean your optimal ratio is not exactly 5 to 1 for non-veterinarians to veterinarians, or it may not be consistently the same—for example, if working around part-time schedules or vacation weeks. Knowing these ratios within your practice in a normal week can provide guidance on how to balance schedules and clinic needs. 

Evaluating your practice’s staffing structure can allow you to identify areas for potential improvement before moving to deeper clinic efficiency tactics. By getting your staffing ratio right, you can ensure that veterinarians have the support in place to provide great patient care, reduce the risk of burnout, and boost practice productivity.

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