UK 
USA 
France 
Netherlands 
ROI 
Germany 21st October 2024
The Financial End is Nigh!
As we speed towards Christmas, most of you will have entered the final quarter of your financial year and the financial end is near. Maybe you have had a great year, so far, or perhaps it’s been a challenging nine months.
If your practice has enjoyed a good financial year, you may still face some of the challenges we discuss in this article, and you may find some of the ideas will help you to achieve even better results.
If your year has been less successful, we have looked at what could have contributed to this and suggested some potential solutions that might help improve your finances.
What are some of the challenges that can have a financial impact on a practice?
Recruitment
We know staff recruitment is still an issue, and this can negatively impact the volume of work undertaken by an understaffed practice and put added strain on existing staff.
Staff shortages have created an increase in wage demands, according to SPVS 2024 salary survey, veterinary wages increased by 8.3% last year (and as much as 19.6% in London!), due to supply and demand.
Pet owners are becoming more sensitive to perceived high charges, as the cost of living remains a challenge. Within the industry we understand that costs for staff, products and overheads have increased considerably, but the general public feel that pet healthcare is over-priced and are prepared to shop around.
Veterinary wages increased by 8.3% last year due to supply and demand.
How can practices increase revenue in the last quarter?
Let’s discuss some potential solutions to the challenges you may be facing.
A recurring issue for many practices is missed charges. It is worth investing time to analyse what charges are being missed and introduce a process to regularly check and proactively chase debt. This may feel like a difficult challenge, but there are ways to help clients, such as using your PVA health plan software to create a payment plan, giving pet owners who may be having financial difficulty a way to pay unforeseen costs in a more manageable way. Offering your health plan as a way to budget for regular but important healthcare is another opportunity to help clients.
Recruit and keep more pet owners. You may not have a clear strategy for this, but even small changes can help. Be proactive with Google reviews. Ask clients to rate you and make sure you respond to any comments, good or bad. Utilise social media platforms and your website to promote your services, exclusive offers, seasonal advice, and healthcare plans. If you have home delivery as part of your plan offering, make sure you promote this widely, as our data shows an average 25% increase in joiners and a 15% reduction in cancellations when this is included. Plans create loyalty and provide invaluable guaranteed revenue, so if you can find ways to increase plan membership, this will contribute to higher revenue. Contact us to request advice or training to improve membership numbers.
Improving stock management will also help control costs. This will reduce unnecessary spend, and wastage. Home delivery, as part of your health plan offering, means no parasiticides stock needs to be purchased in advance for your plan members. This saves space and improves cash-flow.
Increasing communication with your clients is a great way to keep them engaged and more loyal. We know most newer pet owners are younger and want a less traditional approach to communicating, engaging, and purchasing. Using digital platforms like the PVA Vet2Pet app will allow you to provide hospitalisation updates, breed specific advice, health plan management, digital invoicing and much more. It saves time in practice and is a straightforward way to increase loyalty, by giving pet owners a tech-based solution to their pets’ needs and allowing them to self-serve for many aspects of their pet’s care.
Staffing is a more difficult issue to address, but many practices are finding ways to retain existing staff. Vet Times has some helpful suggestions on how to retain valuable staff.
Get in touch today to book training for your staff, a plan performance review, or to find out more about our healthcare plan service, Vet2Pet app or PVA’s Post2Pet home delivery solution.
