5 Easy Ways to Cut Costs in Your Veterinary Practice

Time is money

Not having proper time management within your practice can be costly. Many veterinary practices bleed money by spending too much time on non-billable tasks, or not prioritising their tasks effectively. Fortunately, there is an abundance of ways you can ensure you and your staff are not wasting potential revenue for your business and become more time efficient. As a bonus, it helps reduce workload burden and stress.

Prioritisation

EAT THE FROG. This funny named technique is proven to increase productivity and keep you motivated throughout the day. Using it can also earn you some major headway in your schedule, allowing you to tackle and overcome even more pressing tasks, as you continue your day. The idea is that you complete the most challenging task (the frog) first. This then takes away pressure/weight looming over you, as you continue throughout your day, knowing you’ve already completed the most challenging task or task with the biggest impact.

To ensure you ‘Eat the Frog’ correctly, list out all the tasks in your veterinary practice for that day. Now order them in priority of the weight they bear. This could be tasks with deadlines, ones with the biggest impact, or the ones you’ve been putting off for days. Now all you need to do is get them done. Encourage your staff to do this, first thing, every day – you’ll be surprised by the results and how much better it makes everyone feel!

Work Smart – Not Hard

Hard work is often confused with good work. Working hard can be dangerous, as often there are easier and quicker ways complete tasks. By working smarter, and taking advantage of automating tasks and streamlining processes, you can save hours every month. Hours saved on admin; result in more billable hours your practice has free.

Are there daily tasks in your practice that could be automated or simplified to make them quicker/more efficient? Sometimes when you are in the habit of jobs, it's difficult to see a better/more efficient way to do it - swapping jobs around to different people or having someone shadow you every now and then could mean they see a quicker or better way to complete the task.

Many of our customers save an average of 5 hours per month, simply by using our Auto-order service. Meaning their regular consumables are delivered automatically and managed by their account manager, rather than having to waste time placing orders each week.

This means these practices generate an extra £1,500 per year (if charging £25 per hour simply by setting up an auto-order, which will automatically arrive on their agreed schedule. They now benefit from the additional time and revenue with no worries about products arriving late or running out of key items.

Take Advantage of Bulk Deals

Veterinary supplies are another large cost within the practice. How many hours have you or your staff spent looking for the best price for your consumables? Often overlooked; bulk deals save you much more than finding the supplier with the lowest item price.

If you have the space to stock up on those products that you use frequently or every day, you may be able to get yourself a much better deal than buying smaller quantities more frequently. Sometimes a 10% bulk discount on multiples works out less than buying single items at a lower cost price.

Do you get bulk deals from your supplier? Ask them about what products you can order in bulk and the discounts involved. At Pioneer we have an extensive range of products that qualify for bulk deals, with monthly exclusive offers too – keep your eyes peeled for our emails. You can also find a range of products eligible for a bulk deal on our website too, just look for the piggy bank icon displayed on products. To ensure you are getting the most value from your ordering, we also notify you when you have products eligible for a bulk deal in your basket.

Switch Off & Save

The cost of energy has accelerated at unprecedented rates. With further increases on the horizon, using the same level of electricity is set to significantly increase your energy bill. With some simple changes to the way you consume electricity in your practice, you can ensure these don’t rise as much as they could. 

Turn it off

You’re probably doing it at home, so why not in the veterinary practice? That’s right, unused plug sockets, lights, and even switching the microwave, kettle, and toaster off from the wall. You’ll be surprised at the level of phantom energy appliances and plug sockets use. Simple changes like these can make a significant difference, and the pennies soon add up to pounds.

Use energy-efficient lighting

How often do you walk into a room when the light is already on? Ever thought about how much this is costing you? One cost-saving approach is to install motion-activated lighting. While this is great for bathrooms, this isn’t always practical for the rest of the practice. Switching to energy-efficient lighting gives you peace of mind that you can keep your practice well lit, but in the most energy-efficient way. 

Rally your teams to help you save

One person in your practice taking action isn’t enough. To really see a difference in your energy consumption and bills, you need to get the whole team involved. Posters and stickers reminding staff to ‘switch it off’ or ask if anyone else wants a brew before they boil the kettle are some of the steps you can take to ensure the whole team is taking part and saving.

Do you have a smart meter in your practice? Adding a smart meter to your practice is a great way to see how much you are spending on energy, but also control it too. Allowing you to see how much you are using, and what is impacting cost, it’s a great way to educate staff and create some interactive fun. Why not add one to your practice and see who can get the lowest energy reading per day – making the team more motivated to save.

Go More Digital

How much are you printing? The more you print, the increased expense in energy, paper, and ink you are consuming. If you’re already taking advantage of emailing and texting clients about their appointments and further correspondence, then great! But if not, what’s stopping you?

Did you know that there is so much more you can be doing ‘digitally’ too? In cases where you offer receipts and invoices, are you printing those out? Why not encourage your customers to have them emailed through…a digital copy isn’t as easily lost or misplaced, plus it saves you money. What else are you printing? Can you turn it digital? It’s not just printing that saves you money; by investing in technology, you may be able to speed up processes and free up more time. How many computers do you have in your practice? What would it mean operationally, to have another? 

Upskill Your Staff

Is there a skill gap in your practice? If procedures took less time and had greater success rates, how many more patients could you see in a day? Investing in your staff has one of the biggest returns on investment.

Providing training can save you from needing to hire where you have a skill gap, which is more cost-effective than expanding your team. Offering training and development opportunities also help reduce staff turnover rates, which minimises the costs of recruitment. Upskilling and training your staff will bring new skills into your practice at a lower cost, and can also help refine in-house skills, to be more efficient and profitable.

There is also the added benefit of a happier team and workplace wellbeing. By training staff, you contribute to happiness and fulfilment in their role. Feeling empowered, staff who feel better at work, will output better results.