Veterinary Business
As semi-promised...
I clashed (not to his face) with at least one of the opinions Mr. Wood presented in our class last week.
He seemed to come from the standpoint that veterinarians historically have not made enough money for the extent of their education. Because of that, they must think of ways to increase their profits.
Now, I think it's fine to be a good business person -- maximize your profits, minimize your losses, use your brain. But a good business person will also remember the three-fold purpose of veterinary business: support your family, benefit your clients, benefit society as a whole. A good businessman will be ethical, he will look out for the well-being of his client, he will be open and honest in his dealings.
There are a lot of ways a veterinary practice owner can ethically build a better business:
Advertise in an attractive manner about services your clients will honestly benefit from (e.g. yearly physical exams to keep tabs on their pet's health).
Create a positive atmosphere that your clients will want to return to (put a fish tank in the waiting room, play Beethoven in the background, hire a friendly and attentive receptionist).
Surround yourself with support staff so you can maximize the time spent doing DVM work and minimize the time cleaning floors and shampooing dogs.
Develop your own personality so clients enjoy conversing with you. Connect with them, ask them about their hobbies.
Stock the right amount of stuff, sell pet food, make efficient use of space, install triple-paned windows, conserve materials, do your own repair work on down time, etc.
Do all that and your profits will increase.
I'll hand it to him -- Mr. Wood talked about a lot of it. What bothered me was the philosophy surrounding the concept that "clients who pay more money are happier clients," that we should get them to consent to more services so we make more money per office call. That is apparently the new way to do veterinary medicine, that is the way to make the triple digits and buy a new yacht.
There's nothing ethically wrong* with more services if the animal would honestly benefit from them. There are even important zoonotic and herd health concerns that justify "blindly" testing every animal -- the risk is high enough to make testing the entire population significant, even if it only picks up a few positive animals. Do you want your children to get worms? No? Deworm your puppy. Do you want your neighbor to get bitten by your illegally un-rabies-vaccinated dog? Well, get it vaccinated. You can't go wrong there.
Vets should do their research, find the stats, see if a service positively affects an animal's health. But to give services blindly, because they might unveil some uncommon disease we had no idea existed in the animal? To run blood work every year on apparently healthy animals? I mean, people don't go to such extents for themselves! To prescribe heartworm preventative to dogs living in a place where the prevalence is close to 0%? Any person off the street could grab a veterinary pharmaceutical catalog and randomly prescribe every test and every prophylactic measure available. Veterinarians are trained to play the odds, prescribe with reason, steward well the trust bestowed on them.
That's what I think.
* At least, nothing wrong as regards a client-vet relationship. One could make the case that pet owners should not spend as much money on their animals, there are people starving in the world and we have no excuse to spend money that way. I won't go into that right now.
I clashed (not to his face) with at least one of the opinions Mr. Wood presented in our class last week.
He seemed to come from the standpoint that veterinarians historically have not made enough money for the extent of their education. Because of that, they must think of ways to increase their profits.
Now, I think it's fine to be a good business person -- maximize your profits, minimize your losses, use your brain. But a good business person will also remember the three-fold purpose of veterinary business: support your family, benefit your clients, benefit society as a whole. A good businessman will be ethical, he will look out for the well-being of his client, he will be open and honest in his dealings.
There are a lot of ways a veterinary practice owner can ethically build a better business:
Advertise in an attractive manner about services your clients will honestly benefit from (e.g. yearly physical exams to keep tabs on their pet's health).
Create a positive atmosphere that your clients will want to return to (put a fish tank in the waiting room, play Beethoven in the background, hire a friendly and attentive receptionist).
Surround yourself with support staff so you can maximize the time spent doing DVM work and minimize the time cleaning floors and shampooing dogs.
Develop your own personality so clients enjoy conversing with you. Connect with them, ask them about their hobbies.
Stock the right amount of stuff, sell pet food, make efficient use of space, install triple-paned windows, conserve materials, do your own repair work on down time, etc.
Do all that and your profits will increase.
I'll hand it to him -- Mr. Wood talked about a lot of it. What bothered me was the philosophy surrounding the concept that "clients who pay more money are happier clients," that we should get them to consent to more services so we make more money per office call. That is apparently the new way to do veterinary medicine, that is the way to make the triple digits and buy a new yacht.
There's nothing ethically wrong* with more services if the animal would honestly benefit from them. There are even important zoonotic and herd health concerns that justify "blindly" testing every animal -- the risk is high enough to make testing the entire population significant, even if it only picks up a few positive animals. Do you want your children to get worms? No? Deworm your puppy. Do you want your neighbor to get bitten by your illegally un-rabies-vaccinated dog? Well, get it vaccinated. You can't go wrong there.
Vets should do their research, find the stats, see if a service positively affects an animal's health. But to give services blindly, because they might unveil some uncommon disease we had no idea existed in the animal? To run blood work every year on apparently healthy animals? I mean, people don't go to such extents for themselves! To prescribe heartworm preventative to dogs living in a place where the prevalence is close to 0%? Any person off the street could grab a veterinary pharmaceutical catalog and randomly prescribe every test and every prophylactic measure available. Veterinarians are trained to play the odds, prescribe with reason, steward well the trust bestowed on them.
That's what I think.
* At least, nothing wrong as regards a client-vet relationship. One could make the case that pet owners should not spend as much money on their animals, there are people starving in the world and we have no excuse to spend money that way. I won't go into that right now.
posted by Claire at 18:16
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