Practice Management

The key to attracting a crowd: Knowing what your clients want and raising your level of service to meet their needs. Then you can tap marketing tactics to spread the word.

We'd like to keep our salaries low in order to minimize Social Security and Medicare Taxes. What's the minimum salary we can take so the IRS isn't breathing down our necks?

Capitalism abhors a vacuum. And perhaps in the short term, it abhors ethics as well.

19 tips to cut back on no-shows and get back to business.

Missy closed the door and smiled at Dr. Fremont. The smile was a long, strained affair as she tried to mimic the Cheshire cat from "Alice in Wonderland". The smile vanished as she rolled her eyes and moved into the next room.

In the days of yore - when vaccinations were king and the veterinarian primarily was a syringe jockey - things were a bit easier, and expectations were noticeably lower. Dogs were just dogs, and cats were perceived as varmints by a large fraction of the population. Thus the 15-minute office call was born, and dinner was ready at 6 p.m.

Agree on the basic care you want to deliver at your veterinary hospital. Write it down. And get all your team members heading in the same direction.

Don't you want to improve efficiency, communication, and revenue? If you're not using electronic medical records, you're losing out on these opportunities.

Hoops-and a little hoopla-are encouraged at Firehouse Animal Hospital in Denver. Dr. Jed Rogers included a basketball hoop in the staff lounge when he furnished his hospital.

Does it seem that no matter how hard you work, you just can't seem to get ahead?

The best-kept practice management secret is the rabies ratio.

In the early evening, retirees help Dr. Steve Bishop and his crew at Animal Care Hospital in Phoenix make callbacks, freeing time for receptionists to work on other jobs.

A nearby college or university could give you new business know-how-even if you never enroll.

Use this budgeting tool to capture your revenue, expenses, and amount available for compensation and reinvestment.

Use this four-question litmus test to decide whether you're settling for so-so service.

In the next five years, you'll see bigger practices, more referral and specialty hospitals, more women in practice, and better-integrated technologies. And all these changes will influence your work.

A base plan gives team members somewhere to start, minimizing confusion and panic.

If your success is starting to slip, it could be that you no longer offer the care you so eagerly gave clients in the early days of practice. But it's not too late to get back on track.

My first use of timed artificial (AI) insemination came immediately after veterinary college. A prostaglandin product had been approved for horses, but it was expensive. By infusing a fraction of the equine dose into the uterus of a cow with a corpus luteum, it usually could be brought into estrus. Timed insemination has come a long way.

Q. How do I deal with a team member who is going through a personal issue and seems noticeably distracted during work?

Make sure your benefits stack up well against the other options team members could find in your area-and give employees more reasons to stick around.

Q. To help my team members improve their computer skills, I'd like to pay for training classes. But I'm afraid a team member might leave soon after and I won't get a return on my investment. Should I take the risk?

EVERYONE IS CAPABLE OF MULTITASKING, but equine practitioners take the gold medal: driving the truck to the next appointment, talking on the cell phone, writing invoices, and keeping up with new technology. But at what expense? And how can you manage all those jobs and still focus on providing high-quality medicine?

The honeymoon is over. You've settled into your new place, routine has set in, and you're starting to realize this marriage thing isn't exactly how you dreamed it would be. Sound familiar?

Stagnation isn't an option. So use these strategies to paddle along the always-swelling river of new information. You'll find they make professional growth easy and exciting-and keep your passion for practice alive.

As the continuing education season is well under way, the time has come for another practical quiz.

A corporate trustee won't die, move away, take a vacation or be biased or distracted by personal concerns.

I'm in the process of buying land for a new practice. How much land do I need if I want to expand in the future?