Please feel free to add your own views, tell me when you think I am wrong, support me when you think I am right or suggest other topics which you feel merit debate
Just click on the 'add your comment' link and complete the e.mail box. I look forward to hearing from you
Its Christmas Eve and I've just finished editing Episode 11 of the Veterinary Business Video show which will be published online on January 8th.
Episode 10 will go live tomorrow - yes I know its Christmas day! I hope that you will have an opportunity to share your Christmas with friends, loved ones and all your family - and, in a day or two when you want to relax and begin to think about your veterinary business again, take a look at Episode 10 which includes two of the speakers at the recent London Vet Show talking about professional fees and charges - you won't want to miss it.
AGESVET and Veterinary Business Briefing to work together
By John Sheridan
Thursday, Dec 10, 2009 09:45
The following report will shortly be released to the veterinary press in Spain and the UK
Jose Luis Blazquez, President of AGESVET and John Sheridan, principal of Veterinary Business Briefing and the Veterinary Business Video Show are pleased to announce that the two organisations have agreed terms to work together to achieve their common objectives to promote and enhance the business of veterinary practice and to provide a range of business tools and services to assist their members.
Specifically AGESVET will enrol a number of the Associations members as full members of the Veterinary Business Briefing community and has granted John Sheridan preferential rights over possible translation and adaptation of the business tools under development by AGESVET, for the English speaking market.
John Sheridan, on behalf of Veterinary Business Briefing will attend AGESVET meetings in an advisory role and has granted AGESVET preferential rights for the translation and adaption of Veterinary Business Briefing business tools and other resources for the Hispanic markets (Spain and Latin America)
Further details of the two organisations and of this agreement are available from Pere Mercader, AGESVET board member and from John Sheridan
I had a great opportunity this week to talk to the 4th year students at the Nottingham Vet School about some aspects of practice management.
Karen Braithwaite, Director of Academic Support and Administration at the school and Liz Mossop, lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine have been jointly responsibe for developing a comprehensive series of lectures, presentations, workshops and other sessions as part of the Business and Entrepreneur programme for 4th year students
I was delighted to be asked to contribute to this exciting programme and thoroughly enjoyed meeting 70 or more veterinary undergradutes during my visit yesterday. They hope to commence their careers as veterinarians during 2011 and I grab this opportunity of wishing all of them, every possible success in their ongoing studies and in their careers in this great profession of ours.
Quick Poll for Veterinary Business Briefing subscribers
By John Sheridan
Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009 09:37
I have just posted the Quick Poll for December on the Veterinary Business Briefing home page. This month the question is 'During 2010, what do you expect for your practice turnover?:' Please take a look and record your own vote
Here are the results of the October and November Quick Poll
Today I was delighted to welcome a new affiliate member of the Veterinary Business Briefing community.
He is a veterinary practice manager who is convinced of the value of a content-packed practice website which attracts more than 2000 'hits' per month from existing clients and from many hundreds of other pet animal owners in his practice catchment area.
The practice website also attracts 'hits' from other practice owners and from vets, practice managers and others with an interest in the business of veterinary practice. Here is where the Veterinary Business Briefing affiliate programme kicks in.
The practice website includes a live link to www.veterinarybusinessbriefing.com and my new affiliate member will receive a 20% commission every time a new member subscribes or renews their subscription to Veterinary Business Briefing.
If you have found the resources available in the Veterinary Business Briefing website of value and are happy to recommend the site to visitors to your own webpage and if you would like to learn more about our affiliate programme, here is the link for full details:
I trust readers will forgive my temporary switch from veterinary business matters to UK national political issues. I have been a lifelong member of the Conservative Party and was party leader on West Sussex County Council many years ago.
My voting intentions next year however, are far from certain because I am sure that the future of this still great country of ours, lies outside the EU - see what Daniel Hannan has to say:
I thoroughly enjoyed my two days at the London Veterinary Show at Olympia this last weekend.
There were I think, more than 2,000 delegates and I would guess that two or three hundred or more of them attended every one of the commercial sessions, expertly chaired by David Ritchie.
It seems to me that there is a growing interest in presentations on a wide range of business topics and, at least on this occasion, subjects covering such 'tough' matters as growing the top line, professional fees, controlling the costs, marketing and practice profits.
I would guess that at least two thirds of the audience during the commercial sessions were practice owners with one third comprising practice managers and others. It would be interesting to compare this ratio with the proportion of owners and employees at the VPMA Congress, SPVS Conference and 'The Management Symposium'.
Maybe there are many more employee managers than practice owners at VPMA meetings because the emphasis of the Associations activities appears to address the needs of 'the managers' rather than covering every aspect of 'management'.
If the majority of VPMA members are employees in practice, then it could be argued that such a policy is the correct one. So maybe the London Vet Show has accurately spotted and addressed a gap in the practice management market
I understand that plans for 2010 London Veterinary Show are already well in hand - and I wish every possible success to all concerned
Last week I was the guest speaker at one of the first general meetings of AGESVET -- a new Association currently comprising about 50 members including practice owners, consultants, accountants, University Veterinary Hospital Directors and major suppliers to the veterinary profession.
The meeting was held at the Veterinary College in Barcelona and my hosts were the President and Officers of AGESVET and by Pere Mercader, my colleague and friend who is Secretary to the new Association.
I have recorded some video interviews and plan to include them in a future Episode of the Veterinary Business Video Show -- watch this space
Farm practice comment by a retired small animal clinician
By John Sheridan
Thursday, Oct 29, 2009 10:00
One of the topics covered in Episode 6 of the Veterinary Business Video Show is the recently published report by Professor Philip Lowe on the availability of veterinary expertise in farm animal practice.
He suggests that some practices are missing business opportunities because they fail to make the link between farm health planning, business planning for their farmer clients and planning for their own practices. Professor Lowe also believes that the profession is failing to market farm animal services effectively and that there are plenty of opportunities for practice owners to develop their large animal services by getting more closely involved in farm business planning, by equipping farmers with more animal health knowledge and skills and by the greater use of para-professionals for routine tasks.
What opportunities exist for practice owners to develop their large animal services and what would my priorities be if I owned a farm animal veterinary practice today? Take a look at Episode 6 of the Veterinary Business Video Show to find out. Here is the link: http://www.veterinarybusinessvideoshow.com
Episode 5 of the Veterinary Business Video Show includes a clip from Karen Felsted, CEO of the National Commission on Veterinary Economic Issues. Karen reminded us how important it is for practice owners and managers to review historical trends and the current commercial performance of their practice to really understand practice strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as the basis for planning the way ahead. Here's the link: http://www.veterinarybusinessvideoshow.com
I suppose the question for managers is this. How easy and practical is it to identify the key numbers I need to reach such an understanding, to sort them from amongst the huge volume of data captured by my practice management system and to retrieve them in a format which I can usefully use for management purposes.
In the UK we may have plenty of veterinary practice financial and marketing data in a variety of formats in a number of databases but the question is -- does the profession have the right information in the right format at the right time to enable it to identify business problems and to take steps to resolve them. In short do we need a major initiative by the BVA and its divisions similar to that which has proved so valuable to veterinarians in North America?
An article by Chanticleer in Vet Times (Oct 12th) congratulates the writer of a previous letter to the paper for 'blowing the whistle' on those vets who charge excessively by hiding behind 'defensive medicine' and gives an example of an £800 charge for a pyometra.
I have responded with a letter to the editor as follows:
Chanticleer seems to suggest that a vet who charges £800 for a pyometra (Vet Times Oct 12th) is 'charging excessively by hiding behind "defensive medicine".
Now I didn't see the letter to which Chanticleer referred and I clearly don't know the practice concerned. I have however, used a business tool to calculate an appropriate fee for a pyometra operation based on data from a practice for which I have been offering some management advice. This is a busy, well-equipped 4.5 small animal vet practice (2 owners and a total of 2.5 FTE employee vets) with a turnover of just over £1m, offering high quality first opinion services and generating a 'net profit' for the partners of £182k. If we allocate a 'salary' to each of the partners equivalent to that paid on average to each of their employee vets, the practice is generating a net margin of just under 8% - less than half of what might be regarded as a healthy return.
Based simply on my estimates of the vet time, nursing and support staff time and the hourly cost of the surgical and other in-patient facilities and overheads, I calculated an appropriate charge for a typical pyometra which would cover practice costs for the procedure in my clients practice, of £462.00 . This takes no account of the additional costs of the materials, anaesthetic, drugs, dressings or consumables which will be needed nor any initial consultation, lab tests, imaging or other diagnostic procedure which may have been necessary. It seems to me that a total fee in the order of £800 would have been a bargain.
The cost quoted for a bitch spay at around £200 may have reflected the 'market' price in the locality of the practice concerned, but my client practice would be losing money at that rate.
One of the exciting and encouraging developments in the business of veterinary practice during the last few years, has been the growing enthusiasm by veterinary students to learn more about the marketplace in which they will practise their profession, the importance of HR management and communication skills and the imperative for veterinary practices to be successful commercially and financially as well as professionally.
This is the lead topic in Episode 004 of the Veterinary Business Video Show with interviews from the US and from the Nottingham Vet School.
Veterinary Defense Society - recent graduate seminar at the RVC
By John Sheridan
Thursday, Sep 24, 2009 10:19
I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day at the Recent Graduate Re-union all-day seminar at the Royal Veterinary College last weekend.
The event was arranged by the Veterinary Defense Society Ltd as part of the regular programme of seminars for recent graduates at each of the UK veterinary schools. I was honoured to represent the Veterinary Practice Management Association and a number of other 'oldies' representing the VDS, the BVA, the SPVS and the RCVS together with Peter Gripper from Anval Ltd and colleagues from RIG Recruiting were able to offer some assistance to our hosts for the day, Christine Magrath and Geoff Little.
We were joined by 95 2008 RVC graduates and the programme included plenary sessions on the importance of improving communication skills to achieve better clinical outcomes - in each case illustrated by professional actors
After lunch we were split into small workshop groups and the formal programme concluded with a group discussion about some of the issues facing new graduates and their employers and ways in which they might be resolved.
This was an excellent occasion and I was delighted to have been asked by the VPMA to attend on the Associations behalf.
In this Episode: Who are the managers, what do they do, what are they worth and what are their CPD requirements? We'll take a closer look at the Teleos Systems Practice Management Service and at an interesting veterinary practice website from Minnesota We'll look at a Nifty Business Tool to help generate and interpret some of the Key Performance Indicators which influence the success of your practice and My Quick Business Tip for this Episode
Last year I was privileged to chair a webinar on the Veterinary Business Briefing website to look closely at the management role in practice in the UK. I was joined by a number of eminent speakers including John Bower, Anna Wardle, Mark Moran and Jane Terry and our objective was twofold
First to ask a number of questions including who are the managers, what do they do and what are they worth and secondly -- to find out whether veterinary practices which do employ a practice manager are more efficient, more effective and more profitable than practices which don't.
The results of our survey were published online and include plenty of information about their management role - their working week, their qualifications, their responsibilities and their remuneration -- here is the link http://www.veterinarybusinessbriefing.com/members/290.cfm
What I found particularly interesting however, was the wide range of job descriptions, responsibilities and salaries for employees who all regarded themselves as practice managers. Jane Terry of Darwin Consulting, reminded us during the webinar that the management tasks in practice can be broadly divided into two categories.
Firstly those she describes as 'looking after the pennies' that is managing the existing business, ensuring that the systems and policies are implemented, efficiency is improved, waste is controlled and productivity is enhanced. Jane says that these tasks require hands-on attention to detail and general administrative, management and people skills.
The second category includes those tasks concerned with moving the business forward. They include business analysis, strategic planning, seeking new and innovative opportunities for growth, improved profits and developing the practice team
Of course Jane is right and it occurs to me that it might be helpful for employers and employees in the profession -- if some organisation - perhaps the VPMA -- could seek to define specific employee titles -- such as a practice administrator or a practice manager with specific areas of responsibility. Similarly I suspect that the training and Continuing Professional Development needs of these two groups are very different and maybe there is an unmet demand for training on the one hand for clinicians and others in practice who want to learn the basics about management and on the other, learning opportunities for managers involved in broader strategic and business planning responsibilities in which they can share experiences and learn from their peers and from a group moderator
What do you think?
I will be raising this and other questions during Episode 3 of the Veterinary Business Video Show to be posted next week on September 18th. Here is the link: http://www.veterinarybusinessvideoshow.com Best regards John
