The numbers game can add up to a winning strategy for practices

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The Dunmorean Animal Hospital is a large companion animal clinic with a devoted clientele and an excellent medical staff. If you ask the hospital manager the secret to its success, she will cite reasons that include cutting-edge veterinary medical care and continuing educational opportunities for veterinarians. She would then emphasize the most important factor: the capability and efficient use of the veterinary technicians. The hospital manager would also say that everyone knows the value of excellent technicians. Despite that, the technicians’ role within the clinic dynamic is often taken for granted. Many practices have an established pay range for technicians. When a technician is highly skilled or exceptionally productive, they never really have the option of negotiating compensation increases that may fall outside the clinic’s standard pay range. Many clinics track the metrics and production of veterinarians closely and use them when determining their bonuses or compensation adjustments. Rarely are the metrics for the technicians tracked similarly

The compensation evaluation procedures for technicians vs veterinarians created a recent issue at the Dunmorean Animal Hospital. The veterinary staffing environment today is competitive and challenging. Dunmorean Animal Hospital has had difficulty finding qualified, capable technicians to meet its staffing needs. In addition, some technicians have left the practice in recent months for more lucrative positions. The technicians in a progressive veterinary facility, such as the Dunmorean Animal Hospital, are essentially nurse practitioners. They are responsible for sophisticated patient intake information, client communication, radiology, and radiology specialty interface referrals. They perform all blood draws, intravenous (IV) catheter placements, and ultrasound-guided urine aspiration, as well as calculate and prepare all medications and renewals for veterinarian approval. In addition, under veterinary supervision, they handled a full calendar of technician appointments that consisted of sutures, removals, bandage changes, IV and intramuscular medication administration, and follow-up procedures for postsurgical and chronic medical maintenance patients.

The hospital director was committed to not losing any more highly skilled and valuable technicians due to rigid pay scale parameters and the lure of higher-paying positions at other facilities. It was determined that in addition to the veterinarian performance monitored by the veterinary software program, technician performance would also be tracked. This way, monetary compensation could be more realistically adjusted to performance and not simply be a function of a predetermined pay range. The veterinary technician staff members were elated. This certainly would not lead to anyone’s compensation being lowered, but it could result in some meritorious increases. This could eliminate turnover and result in the long-term employment of many valued and experienced technicians.

Rosenberg’s response

It has been my experience that the retention of experienced and skilled veterinary technicians greatly influences practice efficiency and income production. When a highly qualified technician applied at my clinic, I would hire them regardless of the need. I would then see that they were put in a position to grow the practice. For some reason, many practices track veterinarians metrics yet see technician compensation as part of overhead expenses. Qualified technicians are well educated and prepared to assist the practice on day one, but they are harder to find than veterinarians. Do not let money stand in the way of acquiring them.