Veterinarians are your primary service providers and revenue producers in most practices. Therefore, it is important to optimize the roles your veterinarians serve in order to ensure that veterinarians are utilized in their most productive manner. For example, make sure that you maximize the amount of time veterinarians commit to spending with clients in and exam room or with patients in some form of treatment, such as surgery.
It is therefore important to put a supporting cast in place to keep your producers in their optimal roles performing activities that will maximize value to your practice. There are a number of ways to do this.
- Have qualified technicians perform tasks that will maximize the value of the veterinarian's guidance, without confining them to a task that can easily be completed with excellence by a technician.
- Make sure that you lean on staff for as many call-backs as possible.
- Use services such as Ask.Vet's AnyTimeVetConnect, which allows your clients to connect with a licensed veterinarian via text to get simple questions answered or initial triage, such as questions like, 'is this serious?', or 'do I need to bring my pet in to see a vet?' (Transparency Disclaimer: Dr. Blach is a shareholder and co-founder of Ask.Vet). This service allows you to outsource veterinarian expertise to a service that can staff it appropriately because they serve clients of many practices. It is difficult for an individual practice to be able to make their veterinarians available for this type of role, that clients value.
In summary, make sure to utilize your veterinarian capacity wisely to help your practice grow and to improve profitability.
