What are you worth?

Follow this step-by-step guide to figure your current value to your practice. Then adopt four key strategies to make sure you're worth your weight in gold.

By Mark Opperman, CVPM, Hospital Management Editor

As an associate veterinarian, are you helping your practice grow? Or is your boss losing money by allowing you to breathe the exam room air? My new-found concern about this issue stems from a discussion I had recently with a class of senior veterinary students at the University of Florida.

I asked them to picture themselves as graduates working in a veterinary hospital (that brought smiles to their faces). A patient comes in requiring a medical work up. How much would they charge for their time and professional services? Do you know what they said? $250 an hour? $120? $80? $60? No, no, no, and no. Their answer: $30 an hour—that's all new graduates think they're worth!

That blew my mind. How can you come out of four years of graduate education, with more than $80,000 in debt, and think you're worth only $30 an hour? Accountants, lawyers, and physicians charge $200 or more an hour. I find this mindset even more perplexing when I factor in clients' esteem for veterinarians and the value they place on your services. So why do veterinarians often underrate and undervalue themselves?

Maybe you also left school believing you were worth only $30 an hour. But I promise you, that $30 doesn't begin to cover your boss's cost to keep your name on the payroll. Associates, it's time for your year-end self-evaluation. It's time to figure out whether you're earning your keep.

Simply, you earn your keep by producing revenue for the practice. If your pay and benefits equal 25 percent or less of the revenue you produce, then you're probably paying your way. If your pay and benefits exceed 25 percent, your boss may be losing money to employ you. (Of course, there are many nonfinancial benefits that associates bring to a practice. Although they're important, they're also hard to quantify.)

BOOST YOUR PRODUCTION

If you need to improve your production, start by looking at your professional transactions, or all of the products and services in which you are personally involved in delivering. (This excludes services such as boarding, grooming, or over-the-counter sales.) Your average professional per client transaction should be at least $120 and, hopefully, closer to $140. If not, figure out why. Also look at how your numbers compare with other veterinarians in your practice.

There are basically two ways to boost your professional per client transaction. You can offer clients another service (such as an ear cytology, a heartworm check, or a skin scraping) or another product (such as toothpaste, a toothbrush,  an ear cleaner, or a shampoo).

I'm not advocating that you sell another product or service just for the sake of generating more money. But you likely have more opportunities to educate clients about important products or services that would improve their pets' care.

Consider this scenario: A client brings in a patient with an ear problem. Do you just dispense medication or do you perform an ear cytology? Do you check the patient's medical record to make sure a fecal exam has been performed in the past year and all vaccinations are up to date? Does the patient need a dental cleaning? Or could you recommend a wellness blood screening so you have a baseline to compare with in the future?

To boost product sales, I suggest using passive marketing. To get started, install one or two narrow shelves in each exam room. Select eight to 12 commonly purchased over-the-counter products, such as shampoos, ear cleaners, nail trimmers, special toys, and chews to help prevent tarter buildup or reduce biting behaviors, and place one of each on the shelf.

Then, when a client asks you, “What shampoo would you recommend for my pet's dry skin?” you simply take the appropriate shampoo from the shelf, tell the client about its benefits, and then place the bottle on the corner of the exam room table closest to the exit door. If the client wants the product, he or she will pick it up. If not, the client will leave it on the table. That's passive marketing. You make the recommendation to your client, and then the client decides whether to purchase the product.

Now I don't want you to become a used car salesman. But if you think the pet could benefit from a product, it would be better if the pet's owner got it from you than from the store down the street. Don't abdicate your role as a pet healthcare provider.

You do clients a service by guiding them. The client feels safe giving his or her pet just what the doctor ordered. And you'll see a well-deserved boost in your professional per client transactions.

INCREASE THE NUMBER OF TRANSACTIONS

If your average professional per client transaction is at least $120 and you're still not paying your way, you may not be completing enough transactions. On average, a full-time veterinarian typically generates 3,300 professional transactions a year and 5,300 total transactions per year when you include over-the-counter sales.

If your numbers fall below these, I'd first look at your appointment schedule. Do you have enough hours scheduled for office hours and surgery? Are the scheduled hours convenient for your clients? Would it help to add evening hours, extended weekend hours, or early morning drop-offs? Of course, you'll need to discuss your findings with your boss.

Also look to see whether you're utilizing your support staff appropriately. And make sure you're offering, providing, and charging for all needed services.

ATTRACT AND KEEP MORE CLIENTS

While attracting new clients is normally a group effort, those numbers do affect your personal production. The average healthy practice brings in 25 to 30 new clients per full-time doctor per month. If your numbers aren't that strong, you might want to work harder to educate your community about your practice and its services.

For example, you could participate in career days at local schools and join volunteer groups, church groups, and other civic groups and organizations. This type of community involvement spurs practice growth and helps establish you as a valuable member of the practice.

Another great way to build your base: Personally call your clients after you discharge patients and for rechecks. Little extras like these help you build a following. As your client base grows, you can delegate these tasks.

Once you get people in the door, you need to know whether those new clients are happy and satisfied and will stay with you and your practice. Sending questionnaires to new clients might help your team members assess the situation and keep a finger on the pulse of this very important aspect of the practice.

I'd also look at client retention rates. Does your healthcare team do a good job bonding clients to the practice? Are your client bonding rates as strong as the other veterinarians' in the practice? It is wonderful to know that you're bringing in 60 new clients a month, but if the practice is losing 80 clients a month, you have a problem! So determine your new client numbers and compare them to the number of clients leaving. 

WORK YOUR ASSESTS

Of course, you bring more to the table than straight income. For example, recent graduates bring up-to-date knowledge on medical and surgical procedures. And seasoned associates may possess special training or knowledge in surgery, radiology, internal medicine, exotics, or another aspect of veterinary medicine. Starting an exotics or alternative medicine specialty may cost the practice the first year, but the specialized associate may be a great investment for the practice in the years to come.

Practice owners may also overlook the quality-of-life factor. Having an associate to lean on lets them take a vacation without worrying about the practice. Or, if the practice handles emergencies, an associate may shoulder some of that responsibility and ease the owner's load and stress. It's hard to put a price tag on this, but many owners would be happy to reduce their personal incomes in exchange for time off or help with emergency coverage.

Helping in such areas as personnel management, inventory control, accounts receivable, or physical plant maintenance is another way to contribute. And if you're going to buy-in eventually, you remove yet another owner stress.

In short, earning your keep isn't just about the numbers. And it's important for owners and associates to take the time to discuss their expectations—both financial and nonfinancial—openly and honestly. (Ideally, you'd do this before the associate joined the practice, but better late than never.) When you each know what the other expects, you've laid the foundations for a successful long-term relationship. And you may even get a chance to exceed each other's expectations.