Practice for Profit "Fees, make them fair for DVM and pet owner"

Being in your own business is working 80 hours a week so that you can avoid working 40 hours a week for someone else.

For too many practices today, transactions are declining as more and more colleagues are slicing up your pie. Lucky is the practitioner in a high-growth area who opened up next to the developing areas. For most, the rest, fees have to go up 11 percent a year, just to keep pace.

The overwhelming concern for our colleagues is "What's fair?" I review a dozen fee schedule recommendations almost every working day of my life, and I can tell you that for 80 percent of my readers, their current fees are less than their client is willing to pay! That does not mean that their clients are jumping up and down yelling: "Let me pay MORE! Let me pay MORE!"

It simply means that based on the area growth in population and the average household incomes, they can and will pay more for what they perceive is valuable attention to the needs of their furry, feathered or even finned family members. I'm not sure where Iguanas and their like fit in there, but I don't much care either. I guess I'm going to hear from Iguana Rescue over this!

The time for taking home leftover money after paying everybody else is over!

Practices will not survive the next decade without planning for profit... fair profit!

Fair, in case you were not aware, means fair to you as well as your clients. Fair means having the means to practice quality medicine and have the recipient's family pay for it.

Fair means a lifestyle, not of affluence, but of dignity.

The problem is how to measure fair? Earl Wilson said ... "Benjamin Franklin may have discovered electricity, but it was the man who invented the meter who made the money."

He was so right. You just cannot manage what you cannot measure. So, I have provided you with a yardstick. With this form, you can take a snapshot of your practice and see where you are headed, despite the fog of everyday stresses. If you use this snapshot quarterly, you will not be joining those who cannot retire because they cannot sell their unprofitable practice.

Fact: $10,000 a month in retirement requires $2 million saved and invested in secure vehicles paying 6 percent. Nothing else will do! Only need $7,500 a month, you are in luck because now you need only $1.5 million saved up!

Use this form and walk yourself through the process. See where you are and where you are headed. If you are an average DVM, this is going to take about 11 minutes. (VMDs, of course, can do it in 9.5 minutes) Any accountant ... about two minutes!

The problem here is the average veterinarian thinks he isn't!

Notes:

1. Gross includes all revenue streams including diets, grooming, boarding, surgery.

2. Inflation was recently reported as 9.3 percent for small animal practices. Ten percent is safer!

Dr. Snyder, a well-known consultant, publishes Veterinary Productivity, a newsletter for practice productivity and is available for in-practice consultation. He can be reached at 2895 SW Bear Paw Trail, Palm City, FL 34990; (800) 292-7995; vetprod@bellsouth.net Fax (772) 220-4355.