Surviving a pandemic as a veterinary professional

If you’re a veterinary professional and you feel like you’re being squeezed from every direction, welcome to my pandemic-warped world. It’s gotten so bad that sometimes I feel like a Cuban sandwich, all thin slices of ham, cheese, baby pork, and pickles smushed between two halves of buttered baguette, which is then compressed by an industrial press so powerful the edges of the bread burn and the cheese sizzles while the bread soaks up the excess. Further indulge my Miami metaphor by envisioning our suppliers as the bottom half and elite specialty providers as toppers. We, the tender baby pig (arguably the least equipped to tolerate the pressures), are becoming but a smear of protein. To be sure, it’s delicious in the end. Nevertheless, it’s still kind of sad the bread ends up with more than its share of all the butter. Culinary fantasies notwithstanding, it’s clear things are getting tougher for the average veterinary practice. Increased ER income is keeping specialty services humming, while as many as a third of the practices in my area have temporarily shuttered, possibly never to reopen. This rearranged game board has given an edge to the larger, more established practices, along with the well-bankrolled corporate players, further exacerbating the growing divide between the general practice haves and have nots. But that doesn’t mean Joe/Jane Veterinary Professional can’t survive this public health emergency and global economic meltdown. If you’re unwilling to go down without a fight, you have plenty of options. Even if you’re not a practice owner, there’s work to be done. In fact, most of what you can do comes down to surviving this pandemic as a healthy, sane human being. Telemedicine is for you You’ve heard of telemedicine, right? Then start using it. You’ll find you’ll be able to capture more income and work your way down your list of random telephone calls that make your day totally crazy by sapping you of 10 minutes out of every hour. You may just find you like this communication mode so much, you’ll be happy to take some early evening calls, too, thereby capturing more of the after-hours income your practice might’ve otherwise lost to your friendly neighborhood ER. Take back some specialty income I’ve long argued here that too many of us eschew specialists on behalf of our patients. Whether we’re cutting our own cruciates (though we do only five a year), keeping every intensive care patient in-house, or simply failing to take our cases to the next level, it’s a problem, and one that’s only worsened in the age of the coronavirus, as many of us struggle to keep our heads above water. That sounds judgy to you? I agree… it does. As a practice owner, however, I well understand the impulses that lead us to want to keep the entirety of a client’s disposable income in-house. I’m not immune to the financial pressures that push us to work up a case well beyond our knowledge base or insist to our clients that such and such surgery is absolutely in our wheelhouse (when we’ve never actually attempted it before). I also know your survival is at stake here. But there are ways to take back some specialty income without sacrificing patient care. Use this time to build up your relationships with specialists. Next time you speak with one, ask if you can text them questions regarding prospective patients. When you have a surgeon, internist, and ophthalmologist just a text away, you can make better decisions about cases in advance of referral. Which usually means you can gather a bit more of the low-hanging fruit, diagnostically or therapeutically speaking. Find ways to keep referrals in-house without investing in more equipment. I’ve discovered this is most doable by getting more creative with your use of telespecialty services. Can you get a specialist consult on that EKG? Dental radiograph? Eye exam? With a behaviorist? If you’re not yet referring regular rads, why not start now? Work up your cases more thoroughly. This tried-and-true method to veterinary success means more now than ever before. It all comes down to practicing more the way they taught us to and less like our bad habits want us to. Work harder on your retail sales I’ll be the first to claim veterinarians must wake up to the fact retail sales are not a reliable profit center of the future… not while companies like Chewy are happy to sell at a loss, undercutting veterinarians whenever possible in an unsustainable bid to win as many new customers as possible. There will always be another Chewy offering our clients lower cost on retail products. But that doesn’t mean you can’t compete at all. In fact, right now you can compete. Some of our clients can’t pay a premium, but the ones that can and prefer not to can be persuaded on the basis of convenience. Now that shipping is more unreliable than ever, take advantage by reminding your clients of the time lags in shipping and start selling off your stock. You need the cash now? Be prepared to make a deal. Cash in hand is everything these days, right? Focus on you Being a better, more complete human being is the true secret to surviving the pandemic. In fact, it’s the key to surviving anything in one piece. So when you go home, be sure to dim the lights, give your kids some washable finger paint and a couple of PB&Js, get in the bathtub, and read a novel. Barring that, get rid of all your screens after 7 p.m., do some basic yoga moves, and make a short gratitude list before bedtime. I promise you’ll sleep better. I know no better way to survive this existence than to start the next day feeling rested and sane. You do not need to feel like a sliver of baby pig in a Cuban sandwich. Take back your sanity and wrest back some of that control you feel you’ve lost during this pandemic by knowing you’re doing all you can. You’ve got this! Patty Khuly, VMD, MBA, owns a small animal practice in Miami and is a passionate blogger at drpattykhuly.com. Columnists’ opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Veterinary Practice News.

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Surviving a pandemic as a veterinary professional

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