How is Your Risk Management in the Veterinary Office?

By SK Sherman

An emerging issue for veterinary practices today relates to Risk Management.   Controlling risk can be a daunting task under the best of circumstances and busy veterinary practitioners can overlook this very important element of business management. One could say the ideal way to control risk is to eliminate it or not allow risk in your practice. We know however, that you cannot simply eliminate risk but you can be aware of it and implement processes to manage it.  Accurate real-time communication helps resolve issues before they occur.

This is where Veterinary Pharmacy Reference (VPR) can be a very valuable tool.  VPR will print out a Client Information Sheet (CIS) to give to the guardian that confirms the medical treatment being provided for the patient.  The CIS documents the name of the medicine; the dosage; the reason for the treatment; precautions; special treatment considerations; side effects; drug interactions; approved species; what to do if an overdose occurs and the washout period for the medicine.  Additionally, it has your contact information in the heading. VPR is integrated in AVImark.

Give your medical team and clients a greater sense of comfort by being proactive.  Download a fully functional demo of VPR at www.vpronline.com or call 866-639-3866.

SK Sherman
VPR

VPR clients say it best!
"It amazes us that so much pharmacology is available with just a few keystrokes. The cumulative history feature helps assure us that we are providing the very best care for our clients/patients. Standardized treatment is supported by the Interaction of the Prescription History, Washout Period checking, the Dosage Calculator and the Interaction matrix checking. VPR is an amazing time saver and quality checker."
Kate Christman, DVM

"I'm impressed with how easy it is to find information on medication, dosages and interactions.  This is definitely a valuable resource we use in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital Pharmacy."
Barry Grodsky, RPh, Veterinary Pharmacist, University of Illinois
Veterinary Clinical Medicine, Teaching Hospital Pharmacy

Analyzing Practice Profitability with AVImark Reports

By Barbara Betsch


Provider productivity (or provider production) is one of many variables that impact the profitability of your practice. But in order to improve a variable like provider production, you have to measure it first.

In AVImark, provider production is measured by analyzing services performed and/or items dispensed, and it can include payments applied. AVImark provides two ways to measure production data, or the productivity of each doctor in your practice:

• Paid Production

• Charged Production (Paid or Unpaid)

Paid Production

When doctors are paid a commission based upon paid production, you can use the Income by Provider report for determining these amounts.

On this report, the Amount column is the amount of the payment that was applied. Since AVImark pays the oldest accounting transaction first, the amounts may not be the exact amount shown in the client’s accounting window.

The Profit column is the amount of the transaction paid minus the average cost of items/inventory used.

In running this report, you may see the following NOTE on the bottom:

“NOTE: Returned treatments/items and Account adjustments having a negative amount are reported as payments received”

It simply means there were negative amounts reported in that time period.

When this message is displayed, you will need to find the returns and adjustments that have not been satisfied and deduct that from the income.

Charged Production (Paid or Unpaid)

When commission is not a factor for reviewing the production and you want the analysis to include all charges, paid or unpaid, you can use the ‘Period Totals’ report.

The section called Production by Provider will list each doctor along with his or her total charges (invoices can be closed or open), number of closed invoices, average invoice amount, and percentage of production (out of 100%).

Analyzing production can be a key factor in measuring productivity. As your trusted partner, we are committed to your success, and we strive to provide business tools that will help your business grow.

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