Practice Pulse Blog

Each year the VHMA asks practices about planned or anticipated fee increases for the year. Depending on the question, the number of responses ranged from 176-264. As with past years, the majority of the practices participating in this survey said yes to the question: “Have you or will you raise your professional service fees in 2020?” Most of the respondents (66%) said they would be increasing fees on both shopped and non-shopped services. More read more...

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? It’s a question that’s been debated for centuries and there still is no definitive answer. If a practice manager is accomplished and productive, but the owner is unaware of his/her impact, will that manager feel supported and recognized? The simple answer is, in most cases, no, s/he will not! To guard against feeling underappreciated by owners and unmotivated to carry out their read more...

Consider this, the practice is expanding, and the owner is in the market for additional space. Following a long and exhaustive search, the owner is about to secure a property that ticks off all the boxes. The building has generated quite a bit of interest, the realtor is preparing a lease for your owner’s signature. As (bad) luck would have it, the owner has a medical emergency that requires immediate surgery. The lease arrives as the owner is going read more...

Unfortunately, the world is a riskier place than it used to be, and risk management has become more important to businesses than it used to be. Per www.businessdictionary.com , the definition of risk management is: “the identification, analysis, assessment, control, and avoidance, minimization, or elimination of unacceptable risks. An organization may use risk assumption, risk avoidance, risk retention, risk transfer or any other strategy (or combination read more...

Practice management is an expensive hobby for a veterinarian. Management abilities aside, the loss of potential revenue that occurs when a veterinarian chooses management over medicine is $300 per hour (this figure includes the cost of hiring a hospital manager). If the average veterinarian only manages four hours per week every week, the annual loss to the practice is $75,000. Whether it is done by necessity or out of general interest, it is still read more...