Veterinarians
Advance notice of a one and a half day Financial Workshop for the Veterinary Industry in South Africa
28th May and 29th May 2010-03-08
For more information visit www.ivpd.co.za
5 ways to achieve immediate and maximal profitability from your practice
Alan Robinson B.V.Sc. MRCVS DMS
Vetfocus UK Ltd
www.vetfocus.co.uk
Most vets work far too hard for far too many hours for too little return. The principle cause of this is vets’ failure to charge profitably for their professional time. Often they don’t know what their professional time is worth except in terms of the consultation or surgical fee and these are often determined by what other practices charge rather than based on the needs of the practice finances and profitability.
Then vets often ‘give away’ (the free consult), discount (the repeat consult) or miss real opportunities to sell their professional time through fear of ‘selling’ resulting in failure to offer full compliance veterinary services to the client and fulfilling the clients and patients needs. These activities have serious financial, clinical, and customer service implications on the practice and the staff.
This seminar will show how practices can budget accurately, cut costs, determine a realistic veterinary professional fee based on their financial needs and then demonstrate the consequences of giving away or discounting their professional time and missed opportunities for practicing good veterinary medicine for the benefit of the client, the patient and the practice.
As a comprehensive assessment of your practice we will show you how to analyse your practice finances from five perspectives;
- Profit analysis and Cost Control
- Debt Control
- Pricing
- Implementation and consistency of charging
- Missed opportunities for professional services
Cost and profit analysis to allow you to:
- Analysis of the separate Strategic Business Units – Equine, Small and Farm practice, 1st opinion and referral practice, hospital and branch practice.
- Analyse cost and cash flow to produce accurate monthly management accounts.
- Set accurate budget projections for the year.
- Set quarterly planning and review meetings with practice owners.
- Focus on key cost areas (stock control) for analysis and budget setting.
Debt control
In veterinary practice more time, effort, energy, and heartache is spent on debt collection and getting the money in than any other activity. Debt control is about clear systems and protocols, Credit and Debt Management policies - that prevent outstanding debt occurring in the first place improving cashflow, profitability and client compliance.
Strategic Pricing of Preventative care, Clinical care and Drugs
In practice some products and services such as vaccines and visit fees are more competitive and are often discounted. Drug sales may come under threat from regulation and internet providers. Professional veterinary fees make up a relatively small percentage of practice income. With the investment in vets, staff and equipment professional fees need to be priced profitably to cover costs and make a profit for the business to thrive.
Correct invoicing
Correct invoicing is about setting and sharing Standards of Care based on the best medicine for the patient and clear information to the client. These processes will be discussed and implemented to enhance the use of insurance and clinical work rather than drugs and preventative fees.
Proactive Medicine
Proactive medicine is based on the Standards of Care that the practice chooses to adopt. It will generate more income (profit) from each client transaction through taking up missed opportunities for professional services and encourage vets to visit each client more frequently (more transactions).
If practices took up all the opportunities for professional services that were offered to them, they invoiced the work they did do properly and collected the money they invoiced they would improve their cashflow, income and profits overnight by 50% -100%
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