Giving is better than receiving, but as veterinary medicine is a service industry, professionals often find themselves giving—well past their pain point—with little time or opportunity to help educate their teams or bolster their own businesses. Under these circumstances, initiatives to boost revenue and scale practice growth can feel like an enormous undertaking. Fortunately, small changes—such as incorporating telemedicine—can lead to phenomenal success. DVM6 can help increase your practice revenue in six ways.
#1: Increased veterinary appointment opportunities
Reallocating appropriate appointment types (e.g., rechecks, medication refills, chronic condition management) to a virtual appointment book opens your clinic schedule to higher-level care. Rather than losing time and money on important—but less cost-effective—rechecks and uncomplicated postoperative visits, you can fill your schedule with hands-on services such as preventive care, sick pets, and procedures. In addition to the satisfaction of providing time-sensitive care, DVM6 offers you peace of mind, with the knowledge that your chronic cases are well-managed, and your bottom line is healthy.
#2: Offer expanded veterinary care services without expanded effort
Today’s veterinary clients prefer a well-rounded care experience that includes their pet’s physical health care, and their own emotional wellbeing. However, you likely feel stressed and challenged, because these important discussions and educational sessions can be lengthy and sometimes emotionally complex. At the same time, you need to attend to them while avoiding decreased productivity or making the client feel rushed. However, virtual care options allow you to multiply your ability to provide care through expanded services that include:
- Behavior counseling
- Nutrition consultation
- Weight-loss planning and follow-up
- Quality-of-life assessment
- End-of-life (i.e., hospice) care
Holding these valuable discussions in a virtual setting increases a client’s comfort and access to care—encouraging unhurried conversation, deliberation, and reflection. Virtual appointments result in more informed decision-making, improved patient outcomes, and a better in-clinic workflow, while generating revenue as a result of expanded—and highly sought—services.
#3: Enhanced accessibility meets veterinary client needs and promotes loyalty
Millennial clients—currently the largest pet-owning population group—expect their pet’s veterinary team to communicate well digitally and in person. This tech-forward generation also values flexible scheduling, education, and a personalized experience. Virtual veterinary care addresses millennials’ needs—from in-depth client education to after-hours scheduling—while enhancing their trust and confidence in your practice, because they feel seen and heard on their own schedule.
#4: Boost your veterinary team’s productivity through improved workflow
Virtual veterinary care unburdens your schedule and allows your veterinary technicians, assistants, and client service representatives to prioritize patient care and high-level service without sacrifice or distraction. Without the stress caused by a double- or triple-booked appointment schedule and its required multitasking, your team can rediscover the joy that spurred them to choose veterinary medicine as their profession—resulting in improved workplace morale, increased job satisfaction, and reduced employee turnover. Well-utilized and appreciated team members are more engaged in their work as your practice’s revenue-generating assets.
#5: Increased veterinary client compliance grows your bottom line
Engaged and informed pet owners are key to pet health, and your practice’s loyal clientele. However, educating clients about managing their pet’s chronic condition can be a time-intensive and ongoing process that falls by the wayside when you and your staff are extremely busy.
Virtual care providers—under the umbrella of your existing veterinary-client-patient-relationship (VCPR)—counsel and guide your clients through their pet’s long-term care needs. Unlike an in-clinic appointment, a virtual appointment offers clients real-time coaching while at home—a familiar and safe environment—with their pet. Care techniques (e.g., insulin injection training, medication administration, or performing passive range of motion) can be more accurately demonstrated, and more likely to build client confidence, when pet owners can learn and practice while they and their pet are in their everyday setting.
As client empowerment and comfort grow, so does your bottom line. Engaged clients are more likely to seek veterinary attention sooner, and more readily consent to veterinary recommendations, experience positive outcomes, and refer others to your practice.
#6: Provide enhanced care for underserved pets
Virtual care creates a low-stress alternative for pets who have veterinary office anxiety, transportation challenges (e.g., reduced mobility, large- or giant-breed dogs), or require pharmaceutical management before their in-clinic examination. Before virtual services existed, these challenges left such pets without appropriate veterinary care until an emergency occurred.
While virtual visits cannot take the place of in-clinic care, they can help address care needs for established clients whose pets are anxious or reactive, and improve care access for transportation-challenged dogs and their owners. As a Fear Free Certified Professional, DVM6 can help create a positive clinic visit by educating owners on stress-reducing strategies, including stress recognition, creating positive distractions, and—when necessary—prescribing anxiolytic medications or supplements. By establishing convenient and reliable communication between your practice and these underserved pets, you open new care opportunities, boost revenue, and improve patient outcomes and quality of life.
In today’s busy practice environment, you likely feel overwhelmed when thinking about scaling your business or boosting revenue—when you can barely see the end of the week, let alone the next five years. But successful practice growth does not have to be an enormous task that directs your focus away from patients’ needs. DVM6 has your back. By partnering with our virtual relief services, you can streamline your appointment book while providing high-quality care to an increasing number of pets.
Now is the time to focus on your future. Visit our solutions page to learn how DVM6 can improve your practice’s bottom line and offer some much-needed breathing space to your tightly scheduled appointment book, or contact us to schedule a consultation.
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