Using AVImark's note glossary feature

By Barbara Betsch

In AVImark veterinary software, the note glossary feature allows you to create and store note templates. These templates help streamline the process of producing consistent notes throughout several of AVImark's "tools."

The glossary categories and entries can be added in the Work with Menu, under the Glossary option. The glossary entries are easily accessible in most note fields within the AVImark program by using F7, or choosing Glossary from the top of the note window then selecting "View Glossary". Select the appropriate notes then choose the "Done" button.

Another option to enter notes from the glossary is to use a "hot key" function. From the note window, type in the Code of the glossary note entry, and then use the SHIFT and SPACEBAR keys; this will pull the text from the glossary.

These templates are also handy tools for duplicating text from one area of the program- such as Work with, Hospital Setup, or Reminders- to another area, such as the Information Search or the E-Mail Message Text option found in the Advances Tab of The Hospital Setup.

The glossary templates are easily accessed in many notes areas of AVImark, including the Follow-Up List, Client and Patient Instructions, Item Notes, Q & A Notes, and Medical History Doctor's Instructions.

Barbara Betsch is a senior technician at AVImark. Barbara can be reached at barbara.betsch@avimark.net.

Creating business strategies with AVImark

By Barbara Betsch

Is your company's portrait depicted by intermittent facts, figures and sporadic data? Is it difficult to get a complete and comprehensive picture?

This can be a frustrating experience when you're trying to develop the right business strategies to grow your practice, but when all of your data fits together like a puzzle, a complete picture emerges- making the right objectives and strategies clear.

Fortunately, you can use AVImark to complete your puzzle and fine tune your business strategy.

The first step is to identify the pieces of data that are important to your business environment, such as client retention rates, customer service quality, security, most performed services, and production by providers.

After identifying the pieces to your puzzle, researching and pulling meaningful data and trends becomes the key factor. Using AVImark to assist in this step will not only save time but also will identify weak areas and save resources. Running some of AVImark's pre-set reports can help:

Reports found in the Practice Analysis:

• Client Retention
• Top Performance Services

Report found in Work with Inventory:

• Inventory Stock (found on the Inventory Report)

Report found in Work with Reports:

• Production by Provider

Report found in Work with Users and Security:

• Security User Groups and Functions

Once identification and research is complete, the final step is to solidify the individual aspects to complete the final objective, and create the complete picture of your company's strategic plan.
Suggested implementations could include:

• Using V Surv (an AVImark Partner) to measure client satisfaction for your clinic
• Optimize data using Data Wrench, an MSS solution package
• Measure profitability with production by provider report
• Modifying auditing options in AVImark
• Adjusting staff security levels for AVImark
• Adjusting staff security levels for AVImark
• Gathering other pertinent information via AVImark's information search feature

Barbara Betsch is a senior technician at AVImark. Barbara can be reached at barbara.betsch@avimark.net.

Using AVImark's Discounts to Increase Customer Loyalty

By Babara Betsch

With today's economy, consumers are looking for every opportunity to increase the value of their money. Spending decisions, both large and small, are being driven by the growing need to conserve resources.

When faced with these conditions and the already competitive nature of the business, it is vital to find ways to not only attract new clients to your business, but also to retain the loyalty of the clients you already have.

One way to accomplish this is to use discounting as an incentive.

Your AVImark software contains a number of ways to create customer loyalty through discounting options. Depending on your practice, various strategies could be successful:

Use discounts to attract new clients to your practice
Example: Percentage off (on the fly) discount for customers added during a pre-defined time frame (Use the manual option of the right click discount in medical history.)

Offer loyalty discounts or programs to longstanding customers
Example: Put customers who have spent more that a certain amount consistently during the last five years into a discount class to recieve a discount off of select items or services. (Use client discount classes and treatment/item discount classess.)

Use both incentives to increase your customer base
Example: New customers that spend a predetermined amount of money within a certain time frame and by a pre-paid health plan to get the initial discount special and are placed in a special discount class for one year. (Use a combination of manual option of right click discount in medical history and using the complimentary discount class or percentage off feature using the discount plan table.)

With effective and strategic planning, AVImark's discounting feature can help attrect new clients to your practice and also help cement the foundation of an already loyal customer base.

Babara Betsch is a senior thecnician at AVImark and can be reached at babara.betsch@avimark.net 

Boosting Client Goodwill

By Barbara Betsch

A client's trust in your veterinary practice can form the foundation for a long-lasting, loyal relationship. and when you build customer loyalty, you create a marketplace advantage called Goodwill.

So, how do you build customer loyalty and goodwill? Basic communication is a first step, but active client interaction, loyalty, and goodwill. For example, AVImark offers an information search feature that can be used to identify clients who meet specific criteria. This could include patients who are due for certain services of follow-up treatments, of to target clients for seasonal email promotions and postcard reminders.

PetWise web sites offer enhanced email reminders and birthday cards, newsletters, and access through your practice web site to pet health records and client education information. And MSS Pet I.D. cards provide your clients with a handy way to store important health details for each pet.

Our goal at McAllister Software Systems is to help you gain - and keep - a marketing edge through easy, effective client communication tools. To learn more about these tools, please visit http://www.avimark.net/ and browse the Solutions and Partners pages.

Or, to investigate the client communication tools within AVImark, contact technical support; 877-838-9273, support@avimark.net , or via chat on http://www.avimark.net/.

Barbara Betsch is a senior technician at AVImark. Barbara can be reached at barbara.betsch@avimark.net.

AVImark Tip #4: Choose Your Default Field in the "Enter Medical History" Window

By Barbara Betsch

Since everyone enters information differently in their practice management software, AVImark veterinary software can be customized to fit your individual preference.
Some people add history entries by code, while others add history entries by descriptions. To accommodate these differences, AVImark has an option that will allow each user to select the default field for the "Enter Medical History" window.

To set this option:
• Go to wrench icon on the tool bar, which will take you to the Advanced Options of Hospital Setup
• In the search window, type: Default to Description Field When Opening the Enter Medical History Window
• Left click on this phrase to highlight it
• In the default value, left click the "Change" button
• In this window set the default choice for the entire clinic, and click "OK"

If one user prefers the other default, he or she can select a different default:
• Under the ID-User-Value portion of the screen, right click "New"
• Choose the user, and his/her individual value
• The default will also be displayed. Click "OK"
• When all individual preferences have been added, click "Done"
• Log off AVImark, and then log back on

Our goal is to provide versatile features to help save your practice time and money. If you need assistance with this or any other AVImark feature, please contact our friendly technical support staff.

Phone: 1-877-838-9273 option 1
Email: mailto:support@avimark.net
Live Chat: http://www.avimark.net/

To your success!

Barbara Betsch is a senior technician at AVImark and can be reached at barbarab@avimark.net

Using Merge Words in AVImark

By Barbara Betsch

Sometimes, AVImark merge words can work for multiple situations, giving you the flexibility to merge data from a variety of fields. For example, the merge words and are not exclusively for rabies treatments. They can also work with other vaccinations. Below are situations that represent different examples of how these two merge words will work within AVImark.

Printing the document by right clicking on the entry in Medical History, and choosing document or certificate:

This method directs AVImark to the highlighted entry in Medical History, and all information displayed on the document will pertain to only the entry that is chosen. So, if you have a document attached to a vaccination or a rabies code with the merge words or , it will merge the date of when that vaccination was given and when that vaccination is due again.

Printing the document by right clicking in the patient area and choosing document:

When using this method, AVImark has more variables to consider, including what vaccination or rabies it should use to pull the information for the merge words. So, if you give a rabies treatment today in Medical History but to not post it to Accounting, and then add a remindable treatment with a due date that is later than the rabies treatment you just gave, the rabies document will pick up the due date of the last remindable treatment that the patient received, not necessarily and rabies dates for and/or .

Steps for Consistency

• Post treatments to Accounting, and print the invoice. The rabies certificate that prints automatically will have the correct rabies dates on it.


• Right click on the rabies treatment in Medical History and choose certificate or document and then select the rabies document.

Flexibility with merge words is just one more way that we strive to help you use AVImark to its fullest capacity so your practice can reach it's greatest potential.

Barbara Betech is an AVImark senior technician. She can be reached at barbarab@avimark.net .

AVImark Quick Find/Search Options, Part 1: Client Area

By Barbara Betsch

When faster is better, quick information can be avaliable at your fingertips. This blog is first in a series featuring fast, easy quick find/search options within AVImark.

AVImark has these built-in options that can be utilized in different areas of the program. These options add to the program's versatility when looking for finite data relations in certain areas.

CLIENT AREA

For various reasons, occasionally you may need to quickly find clients based on their place alaphabetically/numerically in your database. With a few quick key strokes, this information can be easily accessed.

Location the next/pervious client numerically:

Select the "Client Name" field

For the next in sequence, use this two-key combination: Ctrl + Page Up

Fot the pervious in sequence, use this two-key combination: Ctrl + Page Down

Locating the next/previous client alaphabetically:

For the next in sequence, use this two-key combination: Ctrl + Up Arrow

For the pervious in sequence, use this-key combination: Ctrl + Down Arrow

Stay tuned for more quick find/search tips coming soon!


Barbara Betch is a senior techincian at AVIamrk. Babara can be reached at babarab@avimark.net.

The Period Totals Report: Capturing a moment in time

By: Barbara Betsch

As you know, AVImark veterinary software offers numerous reports that show everything from the Deposit Slip and Account Summary to the Health Plan Report and Inventory Used.

Another helpful yet little-known report available in AVImark is the Period Totals report. This multi-functional tool represents a financial snapshot of your company. It provides you with a condensed one page summary of your business during the time period you select, and it is so versatile that it can be run daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.

Here's just a brief sample of the items available in the Period Totals report:

• All Payments
• Total Charges (paid and unpaid)
• Average and Total Invoice Amount
• Adjustments
• Tax
• Net Change in Accounts Receivables
• New Client Numbers
• Patient Visit Count

To run the Period Totals report, simply go to Work with Reports. Then:

• Move the Period Totals Report under the Print These column
• Choose Consolidated for the doctor
• Choose your period, start and end date, and printer
• Remember to select Preview of you do not wish to print the report

It's hard to change the future without understanding the past. Using the Period Totals report to review a snapshot from the past will give you the information you need to help your practice reach its greatest potential in the future.

Barbara Betsch is an AVImark senior technician. She can be reached at barbarab@avimark.net

The New AVImark Shared Information Search Forum: Providing the "code" to unlock your success

By Barbara Betsch

Here's one more way that AVImark can save you time and money.

If you'd like to develop complex searches in AVImark, such as patients with remiders due, inactive patients, or patients with missing codes, check out the new Shared Information Forum in the AVImark Form on http://www.avimark.net/ .

This popular forum allows AVImark users to ask questions, receive answers, and share tips with other AVImark users and our knowledgeable staff. the Shared Information Search Forum takes advantage of the new AVImark Imformation Search function that is available on versions 2010.4 and higher.

This new search feature allows you to easily reproduce searches that have been used by other veterinary practices by copying and pasting the "code" into the code editor. Before you spend time creating a complex search, check the user forum to see if the code for that particular search has already been posted. Then just copy, paste, and run the search. (You can also contact technical support for assistance.) It's a great time-saver.

The ability to share and replicate productive search codes with other veterinary practices is a great asset to you and the other 9,5000 AVImark users worldwide. To visit the new forum. go to http://www.avimark.net/ , AVImark Forum, Shared Information Search Forum, or follow this link:

http://www.avimark.ner/component/ccboard/view-topiclist/forum-14-shared-information-searches

Happy searching!

Barbara Betsch is an AVImark senior techinician. You can reach Barbara at babarab@avimark.net .

2011: Small Steps, Big Change

By: John Burch

Do you have a vision for transforming your practice in 2011? Or perhaps you have some personal goals that seem just out of reach? You're not alone. If reaching goals were easy we'd all have "abs of steel," million-dollar bank accounts, perfect relationships, and everything else our hearts desire.

Even with determination, focus, goal-setting and knowledge, one year from now most of us will be professionally and personally where we are now. What makes change so hard? Large, sweeping change is daunting because the goal is often so far away from completion. Doubling your practice revenue, purchasing the latest lab equipment, and running a triathlon from couch potato status are admirable. Unfortunately, nearly half of us will give up by the end of January, and most of us will never make our goals.

Here is a fantastic alternative. Take smaller steps in frequent intervals. In other words, pick one thing you would like to work on at the beginning of each month, and commit to doing that for thirty days. At the end of the month, if the habit has paid off, then continue it. By year's end, you will have potentially made twelve positive changes. The secret is that after thirty days most actions become habits, so you are likely to continue if you are getting positive results.

You can use this same philosophy to improve your practice. Can you think of one small change to implement in your practice? Or ten? Or twenty? Obviously, there are many areas to consider, including human resource matters, accounting, facilities, continuing education and more.

Fortunately, AVImark can help you achieve some of these practice-related goals. For example, are you using AVImark's reminders feature to its fullest potential? How many pet visits are you missing because of poor reminder execution? Or, how much could you improve work flow by implementing the AVImark whiteboard? Could you make timelier purchase decisions and help minimize shrink by using AVImark's inventory feature? Or, if you wish to take smaller steps, you could develop a glossary as you type in notes, double-check your canned estimates, and verify your daily back-ups.

Just like with other goals, full utilization of practice management software is a daunting task. So, many veterinarians get by with just basic customer database functionality. However, just imagine how you could improve your practice if you learned one new feature each month for the next twelve? The benefits to your practice would be enormous, just by making one small, manageable change every 30 days. And in January of 2012, everyone else will be admiring your progress.

John Burch is Director of Sales at McAllister Software Systems and plans to follow his own advice for achieving goals during 2011. He can be reached at johnb@avimark.net.