Increase Your Revenues by Increasing Your Capacity for Service
By Tracy Dowdy, CVPM
You walk into your family doctor’s office to have your annual check up and what do you see? Three to four other people in the reception area waiting to see the same doctor you are planning to see at the same appointment time. Does this scenario sound familiar? Most veterinarians see one patient every 20 to 30 minutes and still they end up running behind schedule. It doesn’t have to be that way in your practice. If you want to increase your capacity for better client and patient service and generate more income at the same time, take a look at some ways you can take your practice to the next level of efficiency.
Share the Knowledge by Setting Standards
Veterinarians have a plethora of knowledge that makes them very valuable within the veterinary delivery system. However, 70% to 80% of the patients seen in most general practices need preventative medicine care or have routine problems. Some examples include wellness exams, vaccinations, infected ears, skin, and teeth and so on. If the veterinarian could share his/her knowledge by setting standards within the practice, the healthcare team could be trained and empowered to do so much more in the delivery of veterinary medicine. For example, staff members could be trained to recognize the kinds of ear problems for which microscopic examination of the ear debris will be required and have the slides set up before the veterinarian even goes into the exam room. Shortening the time it takes to get these results means the client doesn’t have to spend as much time waiting and the doctor and staff are able to increase the number of patients seen in a day.
Many veterinarians are afraid to empower their support staff because they don’t trust their healthcare team will do as good as a job as they can do. Imagine having a healthcare team that is trained to be professional in serving and communicating with the client, has the knowledge of what you will recommend regarding wellness, diagnostics, and therapy and is able to educate the client on why these services are of value to the pet and the pet owner. Employees such as these aren’t meant to replace the veterinarian’s role in the practice, but to help provide a more consistent quality of care, enable the practice to see more clients, and enable the doctor to do what he was trained to do—diagnose and treat patients.
You are probably saying, “I don’t know where to find those people” or “I do not have those type of employees in my practice.” Practice owners need to spend time working on their practice versus working in their practice. Set standards in your practice so that every member of your healthcare team including associate doctors can be held accountable. Focus on having a practice that is systems dependent versus veterinarian dependent. One area in which standards should be set is communication with your team and with your clients. Standardize what verbiage is appropriate when speaking to a client. For example, train your team to say “Certainly, I would be happy to do that for you, Mrs. Smith” versus “Yeah that would be no problem, Judie.” Do you see the difference in the professionalism? Many members of your team have never received formal training on how to communicate on a professional level. The first step in the process is to set the standard high and hold your team accountable. Other areas in which standards should be set include: providing exceptional service, portraying a professional image, having a positive attitude and providing high quality care. Do you think your practice doesn’t need this? Give your team a test. Ask them routine questions about your hours of operation, how to properly answer the phone, what to recommend for puppies and kittens regarding vaccinations and routine care, and what is required in order for a pet to stay in your hospital. Can everyone answer all of these questions correctly? Role playing with your team is another excellent way to identify the current state of your practice regarding standardization, and it can be quite an eye opener. Hopefully, your entire team will be synchronized but chances are they don’t have all the answers or the proper delivery of the answers.
Train on a Weekly Basis
Training your healthcare team on a weekly basis is the best investment you can make for your practice. If you have a team who is professional and creates value in you and your practice, you have healthcare team members who are walking billboards for your practice. This will create income that you otherwise wouldn’t be generating. Dr. Tom Bradford, owner of Advanced Animal Care Centre located in Bedford, Texas which received a Hospital Design Merit Award (June 1998) and a Practice of Excellence Award (June 2000) from Veterinary Healthcare Communications, the publishers of Veterinary Economics magazine said “I didn’t realize how much I was underutilizing my healthcare team before I started training them on a weekly basis. Now that my team has the knowledge and the skills necessary to interact with clients and patients, I can see more patients and have time to work up my cases more thoroughly.” Dr. Bradford and his entire healthcare team spend three hours every week in both customer service and medical training. “Another tremendous result of the weekly meetings is the positive morale of our team. We work together more cohesively and the culture within my practice is very healthy. It’s really fun to come to work and I can say in my 27 years of practice, it hasn’t always been that way,” states Dr. Bradford. You might wonder, “What will we talk about for three hours every week?” There’s plenty. Here is a checklist of issues that need to be put in place in order for you to have effective and worthwhile meetings with your healthcare team:
- A facilitator must be assigned for every meeting
Preferably, it should not be the owner of the practice. It is difficult for the healthcare team to participate and share when the practice owner is doing most of the talking. The facilitator initiates the agenda but doesn’t necessarily run the entire meeting. The agenda items should be delegated to individual team members.
- A secretary must be assigned for every meeting
The secretary takes notes of the pertinent discussions and decisions made during the meeting. Notes are important because:
• team members who are absent from the meeting are able to stay informed, and
• everyone is held accountable for implementation of decisions and/or new policies.
- Weekly agenda items should be set
There should be a consistent structure to the weekly meetings.
Implement High Density Scheduling
Once you have set standards in your practice and your healthcare team is trained to those standards, you can now start to see more clients and patients. High-Density scheduling is only successful if you are willing to empower your healthcare team. The staff to doctor ratio needs to be one receptionist, two technicians, and one assistant for every one doctor. Many practices I consult with have too many doctors and not enough support staff. What often happens is the veterinarian performs too may tasks that could be done by support staff. Thus, the doctor isn’t being used efficiently and maximizing income generation. If you are staffed properly, you can see three appointments in the time it used to take to see one. You will be able to do this because your technicians and receptionists will be doing things you used to do, such as explaining the necessity of pre-anesthetic bloodwork, presenting estimates to clients, and following your treatment plan with the patient. If you have multiple doctors seeing appointments at the same time, you should have three exam rooms per doctor. If you do not have the space to accommodate this in your practice, consider expanding your hours or giving some of your doctors more time off. Bottom line, you will generate more income by seeing more clients and patients by implementing high-density scheduling.
High-density scheduling does not mean making clients wait or having clients left alone during any of the time they are at the practice. High-density scheduling means being efficient and effective by using the maximum capacity of the staff. This allows the doctor to concentrate on examination, diagnosis, prescribing treatment, and communicating with the client.
Veterinarians are the most trusted professionals in our society. As a profession, we can maintain this reputation by providing better medicine and better client service to our clients. It will take some effort, time, and a readiness to change. However, it will pay big dividends. Albert Einstein once said, “Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current patterns of thought.”
Copyright (c) April, 2003 VPI Veterinary Pet Gazette: Volume 4. All rights reserved.
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