Industry resources keep practices nimble during shaky economy

Veterinary clinics saw a second straight month of declining visits at the start of April, according to the Veterinary Industry Tracker from the AVMA and VetSource. Practices are increasingly having to look beyond price and fee increases and focus more on business fundamentals and client services to ensure a healthy bottom line.

To help practices maintain revenue growth, VetPartners launched in March a free digital resource for veterinary practice managers and owners.

The online Veterinary Team Utilization Guide touches on a range of topics, from human resources and training to operational efficiencies and client experience. Additional topics include culture and leadership, mentorship programs, building design, and veterinary practice acts and scope of practice.

“This guide is a one-stop shop of content and resources,” said Heather Prendergast, a veterinary technician who led the VetPartners task force overseeing the guide’s development. “Every chapter has links to relevant resources that have already been developed, but instead of team members having to go search for them, they are included here.”

Members of VetPartners, a nonprofit association dedicated to veterinary practice management, wrote the guide. To access it, users must first register for free on the VetPartners website.

Prendergast, who is CEO of Synergie Veterinary Group Consulting, hopes the guide will become a standard reference for veterinary professionals.

“If a hospital can work smarter, not harder, and gain 60 minutes back in their day, that is an accumulative 22 hours per week, or approximately 100 hours per year,” she explained. “More patients can be seen, team members would leave work on time, and medical records would be completed before the end of the shift.”

A paper by AVMA economists published in 2023 in JAVMA also suggests that efforts to optimize efficiency can allow companion animal practices to meet demands for their services without necessarily needing to hire more staff.

“Improved efficiency could put the practice in a better position and ease some of the frustrations arising from the challenge of finding new team members, without compromising the quality of, access to, or cost of care. Solutions could be as simple as engaging existing staff to their full potential, identifying and addressing workflow issues, leveraging technology, and providing strong leadership,” the study’s authors wrote.

The VetPartner’s guide complements AVMA’s online suite of practice management tools. For instance, there’s a guide on value-based pricing, tips on using the right language when discussing preventive care with clients, recommendations for empowering credentialed veterinary technicians to support practice success, and guidelines for incorporating telemedicine into practice operations.