Tallying up your team members

It's not that easy to say. After all, every day some team members leave the profession and others join the ranks of professionals who want to help animals live healthier lives. But our estimate is 200,000 or more when you look at all practice types. Here's the math:

We know Veterinary Economics serves 59,296 practicing veterinarians. And AAHA data shows an average of 3.5 full-time-equivalent staff members per doctor. Which leads us to 207,536 staff members in U.S. veterinary practices.

The 100 practices that we study to develop the benchmarks presented in the annual Well-Managed Study report even higher numbers: 3.8 staff members per doctor—and that's not including any practice managers. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1: Breaking it down: Staff members per DVM

Managers are tougher to get a handle on. The Veterinary Hospital Managers Association currently recognizes 128 certified veterinary practice managers. That's clearly a fraction of the total number of team members handling management duties. In fact, 39 percent of respondents say they have a full-time manager and 16 percent have a part-time manager, according to the 2004 Veterinary Economics Scheduling and Retail Practices Study.

Figure 2 : Paying the bills or building a career?

With about 26,600 practices nationwide, according to lists gathered by Advanstar Veterinary Healthcare Communications, we could conceivably be talking about more than 10,000 practice managers. Of course, these staff members likely represent a wide range of responsibilities in practice. A head receptionist may handle inventory and team scheduling for a two-doctor practice, while a hospital administrator could manage a team of 150 and the gamut of financial and personnel management duties that come with a practice that size. One positive: The numbers could indicate that more practices are showing staff members how to make their job a career by offering new opportunities and responsibilities. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 3 : Tallying practices by region