Is an ESOP a Good Option for My Veterinary Practice?

by easyDVM

Employee stock ownership plans, or ESOPs, are a powerful way of encouraging your employees to take an active interest in your business. They can powerfully impact your company for the better, although they’re not without drawbacks. Read on to learn more about ESOPs, and how they incentivize employees.

What Is an ESOP?

An ESOP is a plan where a company pays benefits to employees in the form of shares in the company. These shares can’t be sold off until the employee leaves the company.

When that happens, the company automatically purchases the employee’s stock. Employees can choose to receive that money in a lump sum, or in payments over time.

Frustrated with your current veterinary pm software? With easyDVM, we can help…

Different ESOPs may be set up differently. Some companies may not distribute stock to employees until they’ve been with the company for a certain length of time. Others may distribute a type of stock that doesn’t come with voting privileges, which restricts employees from making key decisions (unless they buy normal stock in the company on their own, of course).

An Example

Sarah works as a veterinarian at a practice with an ESOP. She came on because she liked this investment option – although she had to work there for a year to get it, and it doesn’t give her voting rights.

Every year, her ESOP benefits buy shares in the veterinary practice. She can’t sell them until she leaves the practice. Because she can’t get out of her investment early, she knows she has to work hard to see the practice succeed.

Sarah is nearing retirement age. She’s excited for her shares to “vest”, meaning she’ll receive money for them (matching their value at the time of her retirement). The veterinary practice will directly buy her shares, then distribute them over time to other veterinary employees.

The Benefits

Employees like ESOPs. Giving veterinary employees stock in the corporation will encourage them to apply at the veterinary practice and stay there longer, so they accrue benefits. If a practice is having trouble recruiting and retaining veterinary employees, an ESOP can be a key part of a strategy to turn that around. ESOPs also often come with many tax benefits for employees and the veterinary practice.

ESOPs also encourage employees to care about the veterinary practice. Their investment is tied to investors’ confidence. If employees don’t care about the practice’s future, an ESOP is a powerful way of reminding them that everyone should be pulling together.

Limitations and Drawbacks

Despite their appeal, ESOPs have some serious limitations and drawbacks. Perhaps the most obvious limitation is that not all companies distribute stock. A sole proprietorship or other non-stock corporation won’t be able to provide employees an ESOP.

Stock is a measure of real ownership in a veterinary practice. When a practice sells stock to the public, they lose a certain amount of control over their practice to shareholders. Veterinary practices with ESOPs often cede some control to their employees, although nowhere near as much as they cede in a model like a worker-owned cooperative. Concerned practices can distribute ESOP stock that doesn’t give employees voting privileges.

In some rare but troubling cases, an ESOP may incentivize bad employee behavior. An employee might fail to blow the whistle on scandalous practices within the practice, for instance, because this would cause investors to lose confidence in the veterinary practice and cause the employees’ investments to lose value. Rather than addressing the bad practices and amending them, employees might allow the toxic elements within the practice to fester. To avoid this, it’s vital to maintain a culture of accountability and honesty within the veterinary practice.

For practices that dispense stock, an ESOP can be a valuable way to incentivize employees to sign onto the veterinary practice and work toward its success. ESOPs aren’t an option for every practice, and should be carefully considered before they’re implemented, but can transform a veterinary practice’s culture for the better.

Getting Veterinary Clients in the Door (A Few Reminders…)

by easyDVM

Content marketing can seem like a complicated endeavour. But, just like anything in business, content marketing is only as daunting as you make it. I understand that may sound a little naive, but there is certainly a grain of truth to the notion that we can over-complicate any task when we lose sight of that task’s guiding principles. Content marketing is a multi-step process, but the strategies that surround content marketing are based on largely common sense and practical principles and guidelines. If nothing else, I am here to remind you of a few of those guidelines and hopefully relieve some stress surrounding content marketing strategies and applications.

Take time to think about your practice and your clients

Before you can generate actual content, take a deep breath and brainstorm about what your practice means to you and your clients. If you don’t clearly define the terms of your practice ( i.e. how you want it to be perceived, what you want it to accomplish, and how you want it to impact your clients), how can you expect to define the terms of your marketing strategy? When you are generating content, it can become very clear very quickly whether your content is being guided by a clear and concise vision. Constructing that clear practice vision can help define your goals and construct a holistic marketing strategy. In essence, treat this brainstorm time like a scientific case study; before you can conduct the study, you must define the terms and variables that will guide your study. Content marketing is no different.

Be brutally honest with yourself

When generating content, you must be brutally honest with yourself. If writing was never your strong-suit, it may not be the worst idea to look elsewhere for content generation. This might mean looking in-house for people on your team that could generate engaging content or be trained to do so, or even outsourcing your marketing to a professional in the marketing field. Either path with require some investment, but if you’re serious of generating engaging content that will bring people in the door (or are reading this post), then I’m sure you understand that. If you decide to remove yourself from the direct marketing process, do not feel that you must exclude yourself entirely. Do not discount your knowledge as a veterinary professional. Whether you decide to stay in-house or outsource your content marketing, utilize your expertise and insight.

Rough draft versus final draft

It’s like you never left college! This might seem like common sense, but the editing and optimization process is vital once you’ve generated content. Check for spelling errors, the presence and placement of keywords, content organization, plagiarism, etc. Treat your marketing content like you would the final draft of a college assignment. Glaring grammatical errors or incorrect data presentation can really detract from the strength of your content, so be sure that your content generation process includes an editing step. Bonus tip: When generating content, particularly when it relates to veterinary medicine, make sure that what you’re saying is client-friendly. More specifically, make sure that what you’re saying isn’t too bogged down in technical jargon or only accessible to other medical professionals. Your focus is on engaging clients in some form or another, so always double check that your tone and content are customer-centric.

SEO. SEO. SEO!

Search engine optimization. This is an imperative aspect to content marketing and entails a variety of aspects involved in optimizing not only the performance of your content but your website, as well. SEO entails things like optimizing your site/content through a responsive design (which can incorporate clean coding, faster load times, etc.), complying with existing web standards, strong backlinks and inbound links through promotion, meta information, as well as mobile search compatability. This last aspect – mobile search – could be argued to be the most important, if for no other reason than the ever-growing prominence of mobile usage by consumers. Search engine optimization also entails integrating your content and website with your existing social media presence. Don’t be afraid of cross-promoting your site and content across different platforms, and always including links and streams from one to the other.
The keys listed above are certainly not the end-all be-all when it comes to content marketing, but they do highlight a few of the major points and pit-stops along the way to successful content generation and marketing. If you’re ever in doubt about the success of your content marketing strategy or just want to stay on top of your marketing efforts, utilizing tools like Google Analytics or the analytics tools on Facebook and Instagram are great options. They can provide a wealth of data on your website or social media platforms, and even track the performance of individual pieces of content. They are meant to be user-friendly, so do not be intimidated by what may seem like a bunch of analytical IT jargon. Such analytical tools ultimately give you greater control and understanding of your marketing strategy, and can even help you better understand what potential and existing clients are engaging with. If you would like to go more in-depth, I have posted some links below to sites and articles that delve into topics like content generation and marketing, as well as SEO. These links are not endorsements of specific companies or entities. Rather, they are simply meant to encourage further learning and understanding.

Content Marketing:
http://www.vmdtoday.com/journals/vmd/2017/august2017/the-five-pillars-of-content-marketing
SEO:
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

EasyDVM Practice Software is a cloud-based veterinary practice management software system. We pride ourselves in offering a system that is user-friendly, easy to learn for new team members, full-featured and elegant in its simplicity. Best of all, all devices, multiple users, all your clients and patients, always affordable.

Top 5 SEO Tips for Veterinary Practices

by easyDVM

According to a 2017 survey, eight out of 10 people have used search engines to find a local service or product within the last week. As a veterinary practice owner, you need to ensure your business is highly visible in search engine results pages if you want customers to find out about the service you offer. Here are five SEO tips that can help your veterinary practice stand out online.

1. Choose Your Keywords Carefully

Use a keyword research tool, such as Google Keyword Planner, to find out which keywords people use when searching for veterinarians online. Consider local keywords, such as “veterinarian in [your city],” as well as service-specific keywords such as “spay and neuter.” Long-tail keywords, such as “cat spaying in [your city],” contain several words. Although they have a smaller search volume than general single-word keywords, such as “vet,” long-tail keywords usually have less competition and can attract customers who are looking for the specific services you offer. Be sure to include long-tail keywords in your SEO strategy.

2. Publish Fresh Content Regularly

Adding a blog to your website can strongly boost your search rankings. Search engines love fresh, original content. Once you have chosen your target keywords, create content around those keywords and publish it on a regular schedule. For example, you could add one post per week to your blog.

3. Provide Value to Readers

Your content must provide value for your readers. Use services like Quora to find out what questions people are asking online, and then use your veterinary expertise to create posts that answer these kinds of questions. You can also source blog topics from the questions clients ask in your veterinary practice. For example, if clients regularly express concern about putting their pet under anesthesia for surgery or dental cleanings, you could write a blog post about the anesthetic options for pets and how vets minimize the risks.

4. Add Your Veterinary Practice to Directories

Adding your business to online directories makes it more visible online, as well as providing backlinks to your website that can improve your search rank. Add your veterinary practice to Google Maps, Yelp and any local directories that serve your city or region. Be sure to keep these listings up to date with accurate opening hours and contact details. Encourage your customers to review your business on these directory sites to improve its visibility and reputation.

5. Use Social Media

Using social media can strengthen your relationships with customers. Having a strong social media presence may also bring SEO benefits, as people who interact with your practice on social media may post links to your website from their own sites and blogs. The more links you have pointing to your website, the higher your search rank is likely to be. Set up profile pages for your veterinary practice on Facebook, Twitter and any other social media networks popular with your customers. First, fill out your profile pages with accurate information. Next, begin sharing interesting and engaging content, such as links to your blog posts, pictures of your veterinary team, and questions that encourage people to talk about their pets.

Keep It Up!

Search engine optimization isn’t a “set and forget” process. To stay at the top of the search engine results pages, you need to keep using these tips. By continually working on your SEO strategy, you can make it easy for customers to find you online.

EasyDVM Practice Software is a cloud-based veterinary practice management software system. We pride ourselves in offering a system that is user-friendly, easy to learn for new team members, full-featured and elegant in its simplicity. Best of all, all devices, multiple users, all your clients and patients, always affordable.

Veterinary Medicine and Technological Trepidation

by Hunter Little

In a recent editorial published in the May/June issue of “Today’s Veterinary News”, the University of Georgia’s Simon R. Platt wrote a piece concerning the telemedicine, the AVMA, and the implementation of new telecommunication technologies in the veterinary field. The editorial, in part, focused on a report written by an AVMA advisory panel that attempted to define telemedicine and its potential implications for veterinary medicine. Platt’s assessment saw telemedicine and veterinary telemedicine as dividing into two distinct camps: the first being a kind of consultation structure that facilitated collaboration and cooperation between practitioners, and the second being a more diagnostic role, offering a diagnostic/care service for remote situations, etc. But the real task at hand, as Platt argues, is the degree to which this kind of technology can fit into veterinary medicine not just accurately, but ethically too. Platt notes how “we fear where it all could lead […] the rules of the game don’t change because a consultation occurs electronically rather than face to face.”

To outsiders looking in, veterinary medicine, in some regards, is a very slow moving beast when it comes to technological implementation. But, as Platt’s piece indicates, this isn’t such a bad thing. There are ethical and legal aspects to consider. More importantly, there is the question of standard of care. And here, I would have to agree. Pets present such a raw, emotional attachment for their owners; unconditional love from a pet is an almost universal constant, and something veterinarians must contend with at all times when providing medical care. So it would stand to reason that the technology that is implemented into veterinary medicine augment animal health and well-being in such a way as to support that underlying principle. On the individual practice level, this sentiment towards technology holds true, almost more so than at the broader, AVMA-policy level. So, my thought is this: when you, as a practice-owner, are considering new technologies and software to implement into your practice, consider its ability to effectively relay that standard of care. If your software can relay that level of care so inherently intertwined with veterinary medicine, then perhaps it is technology worth considering. If it only proves to bog your practice down, and mar your ability to provide that certain standard of care, then perhaps you should look elsewhere. When implementing new tech or software, trust what you see, and trust what your employees see. Platt includes a quotation at the beginning of his piece that reads:

“We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.” – Platt

EasyDVM Practice Software is a cloud-based veterinary practice management software system. We pride ourselves in offering a system that is user-friendly, easy to learn for new team members, full-featured and elegant in its simplicity. Best of all, all devices, multiple users, all your clients and patients, always affordable.

4 Ways to Successfully Promote Your Veterinary Practice

by easyDVM

When promoting your veterinary practice, you’ll want to set some predetermined goals. More importantly, you’ll want to be able to measure your results.

Whether you’d like to increase the number of clients coming through the door or build a positive reputation in your community, there are plenty of cost-effective promotional tactics.

4 Ways to Successfully Promote Your Practice

To stand out from your competitors, show your clients that you are a credible and valued practice. When you market your veterinary practice effectively, you can keep your current clients happy and attract new business.

In order to do so, here are some top tips to reach your marketing goals.

1. A locally targeted blog

When it comes to the online world, content is king. If you already have a following, blog posts will provide your audience with information about your practice. Also, when you provide informative, useful content, you will develop a relationship with new potential customers.

While writing content, be mindful of SEO. Since you will want to reach those within your community, focus on a local perspective. As your local audience connects with your posts, they’ll be more likely to share — expanding your reach to more local residents. These posts will then bring more traffic to your site and, in turn, increase local awareness.

Top tip: Research local keywords using Buzzsumo and mention upcoming events in the area.

2. Social media

When it comes to your audience, it’s easier to get your preexisting clients to come in more often than to get new clients to come in. In that sense, focus on those who currently follow you on your social media outlets. Use these platforms as tools, consistently posting fresh, engaging content.

Top tip: Run a contest on your Instagram, Facebook or Twitter page, asking your clients to post a photo of their pet and tag your practice. You can either draw for winners using a random winner generator, such as RandomPicker, or create your own contest rules. (Keep in mind that some social media sites have contest guidelines, so be aware of the legal requirements before posting.)

3. Email marketing

When your clients first register at your practice, offer an option to receive updates and news regarding anything from pet health to exciting promotions. Collecting your clients’ email addresses is a golden opportunity to send information and reminders once or twice a month. This will help you build a rapport with your clients.

Top tip: Provide value in your emails, focusing on topics such as pet health. At the bottom of the email, send a reminder about their next wellness visit. With the permission, you can even send out another client’s success story. To simplify this process, an automatic email reminder will ensure consistency.

4. Reputation management

Last, but certainly not least, you need to make reputation management a top priority. What people say about your veterinary practice will influence the decisions of those in your community. Be aware of which websites you’re featured on, and develop a five-star rating.

Since your customers are bringing in their pets, they’ll want to be confident in their decision. Having a great reputation will encourage new business.

Top tip: Politely ask your regular clients to leave an honest review online, based on their experiences. If you have built up an email list, send a direct link to simplify the review process.

Introducing EasyDVM

Although you will want to be hands on in terms of client interactions, you do not have time to organize every minor task and detail. This is why easyDVM, a software that offers a wide range of practice management features, was created.

Whether you opt to run a client loyalty rewards program or would benefit from an automatic email reminder delivery system, this all-in-one software is the solution.

EasyDVM Practice Software is a cloud-based veterinary practice management software system. We pride ourselves in offering a system that is user-friendly, easy to learn for new team members, full-featured and elegant in its simplicity. Best of all, all devices, multiple users, all your clients and patients, always affordable.

Sources

https://www.shortstack.com/is-your-facebook-contest-legal-infographic/

http://buzzsumo.com/

http://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/7-low-or-no-cost-marketing-strategies-for-your-vet-practice/

10 Best Marketing Tips for Veterinarian Practices

by easyDVM

Word-of-mouth once created extreme demand for exceptional veterinarians. Today, amplifying your message and building a strong local presence are needed to increase foot (and paw) traffic to your practice.

Here are 10 tips to keep your lobby full:

1. Make Sure Your Practice Is Top-Notch

Lots of competition exists. Not only are there more vets than ever, but there are also pet vaccine clinics and large pet retailers. Review your location, your hours, your pricing, administration and your pet care. Lacking in any area? Fix it before expanding promotions. If scheduling or recordkeeping are issues, veterinary software will make you more efficient. The convenience of practice hours can be troublesome, so consider adding one late night per week.

2. Formulate a Goal and Strategy

What do you want to accomplish? How can you get there? Consider how you do things now and what works well. Promotions that target current clients are successful and cost-effective since these people already know and like you. Supercharge your use of client mailers and your newsletter. (You do have one, right?)

3. Encourage Word-of-Mouth

Today’s loving and savvy pet owners research well before trusting someone with their furry friends. They’ll ask friends for recommendations and read online reviews before calling for an appointment. Be sure to ask current clients to leave reviews on your website, Google or social media accounts. Offer them a discount for referring friends or family. Surprise good customers with a gift card for a local pet store. You can bet they’ll tell their friends.

4. What’s in It for Them?

Focus marketing on the benefits to your clients and their four-legged friends. Tell them about your friendly team, your newly extended hours, cage-free boarding or affordable rates. Why should they do business with you?

5. Keep Your Message Simple

Figure out your message and stick to it. Keep it simple, easy to remember and effective. Something along the lines of “Jones Animal Hospital: We love your pets like you do!”

6. Use Calls to Action

Your marketing should include a call to action. Even if you are voted Best Vet in Miami, a vet offering a promo discount for new clients will likely attract more of them. Use your status, but give them a reason to call for an appointment right now: “We were voted Best Vet in Miami, and we’ll give you $25 to found out why this week.”

7. Build Social Media Pages With Unique Content

Sponsor photo contests for “best smile,” “laziest pooch,” “most curious cat” or “playful pups,” and watch your fan base grow rapidly. Post links to blog posts offering tips about keeping pets safe on the Fourth of July, or how to keep them parasite free. Offer incentives to current clients who enter their pets in the contest, in addition to a gift for the winners. Promote services sparingly, but give them lots of information, great pictures and stories about your pet clients or your team.

Animal rescue groups are always in need of pet food and other supplies. Donate these yourself, or set up a donation area at your office. You might also consider volunteering to treat injured or ill animals that are rescued. Animal lovers know which vets in town are kindred spirits!

9. Special Events and Collaborations

Hosting workshops about caring for a new puppy or leash training a dog will draw lots of pet lovers. How about a picnic or holiday celebration to thank your clients, or an open house to show off your new facility? Collaborate with related businesses and do cross-promotions.

10. In-Practice Marketing

Promote your services on your lobby walls and treatment rooms, or pin flyers to a bulletin board in your waiting area. Let people know how you are different from other vets in town.

Use these tips to brainstorm ideas for your practice, and contact us for veterinary software programs to streamline administration and boost profits.

Sources:

EasyDVM Practice Software is a cloud-based veterinary practice management software system. We pride ourselves in offering a system that is user-friendly, easy to learn for new team members, full-featured and elegant in its simplicity. Best of all, all devices, multiple users, all your clients and patients, always affordable.

Should I Open My Own Veterinary Practice?

by easyDVM

Open for businessOpening your own veterinary practice gives you a lot of control over your career, but some vets are happy to remain associates in existing practices. The right choice for you depends on what you want out of your career. Let’s take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of each option to see which is right for you.

Why Open Your Own Veterinary Practice?

Veterinary practice owners often have more control over their working lives than vets who work as employees in practices owned by other people. When you own the practice, you can determine the opening hours of your practice, as well as choosing the layout and decor of your working environment. Feeling that you have chosen to come into work every morning can make a huge difference to your state of mind, as you will feel in control of your life. You may also feel more invested in the practice and feel as though you are working toward an important goal.

Why Remain as an Associate?

Associate vets often have a better work-life balance than practice owners. Although they may in theory have less control over their working hours, they often work fewer hours in total. Whereas practice owners must do everything it takes to keep their practice running, including solving any crises that occur, employees are only obliged to work their contracted hours. When you go home at the end of the day as an associate, you can stop thinking about work, whereas a practice owner is responsible for planning the long-term future of their business.

Which Is Better for You as a Veterinarian?

Choosing to remain an associate doesn’t mean you aren’t committed to your career. Some veterinarians choose to forgo practice ownership so they can spend more time reading the latest medical journals and developing their medical skills. On the other hand, practice owners get a wider view of pet care, as they interact with pet owners, insurance companies, and the regulations that govern the industry, as well as the animals themselves. Which option is best for your career? It depends whether you want to focus purely on medicine or explore other areas of running a veterinary business. This is a very personal choice, so take some time to think through which aspects of your job you most enjoy before making the jump into practice ownership.

Which Option Is More Financially Rewarding?

Practice owners have a greater potential to increase their earnings than associates, but they also risk losing money. As an associate, you may enjoy the stability of taking home a fixed salary every month, or you may aspire to build a business that provides you with long-term financial security. If you have access to enough capital to start your own practice, you could create a highly profitable business that gives an excellent return on your initial investment.

Should You Open Your Own Veterinary Practice?

Opening a veterinary practice is a great option for many people, but before you jump into this option, it pays to do your homework. Take the time to learn the business skills you’ll need to manage your practice, such as marketing, accounting and managing practice budgets. Think carefully about what you want from your veterinary career. Are you an ambitious entrepreneur who craves control or an associate who simply wants to care for animals while maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

EasyDVM Practice Software is a cloud-based veterinary practice management software system. We pride ourselves in offering a system that is user-friendly, easy to learn for new team members, full-featured and elegant in its simplicity. Best of all, all devices, multiple users, all your clients and patients, always affordable.

Worried about the transition from Paper-based to Paper-less Veterinary Practice Software?

by Sam D Meisler DVM

Worried about the cost and expense of a transition from paper to paperless?  This is a very valid concern and there are many things to consider.  First, how will the transition take place.  In going from paper-based medical rAnxietyecords to paper records, we recommend proceeding slowly.

Once you have decided on a veterinary practice management software provider, the first thing to do in the initial set up after getting your basic business information in (ie. name, address, logo, sales tax percentage, etc) is to load up your prices for services and products.  Most providers will allow you to put all of your prices onto a spreadsheet like Excel and they will then
load them into their software database.  Or you can enter them in one by one.

Next, take a good hard look at all those shelves or filing cabinets full of paper medical records.  Converting them to your new veterinary practice management software system is a daunting task.  Yes, you could pay a third party to come onsite and scan in all the thousands of patient records into i
ndividual pdf files for an exorbitant fee.  Then you could upload them all one-by-one into the software wasting hours and hours of your staff’s time.  Instead, we suggest that this is a great time to clean house.  Instead of converting every medical record, take this opportunity to purge records.
The best way to do this is when you are ready to start using your new system, enter client and pet information into the computer only as those particular clients come in for services.  You could also save time, if you have scheduledappointments, by entering client and pet information into the system the night before.  Scan the old paper records into a pdf file at the same time.  Many veterinary practice management software systems have a client registration screen where the client can do all the work for you by entering their current information directly into an iPad.  When the client comes in, give them the iPad to enter their information.  After a year of doing this, you can slowly purge that huge mess of paper medical records.  And in time, you can slowly move the old paper records of clients no longer using your services to the back room for storage.

Above all, make the transition super easy on you and your staff.  And use a veterinary practice management software system that is as easy to use as ordering something from Amazon.

Going Paperless in Veterinary Practice

by Hunter Little

Going Paperless!
Going Paperless in a Veterinary Practice!

For nearly the last 30 years, the notion of going paperless has been at the center of an ongoing dialogue on veterinary business innovation and evolution both large and small; however, the paperless dream has been mostly just that: dialogue. It is certainly hard to argue with the stalwart tenure of a veterinary practice management paper-based system. Like an old friend, the paper-based system has been -for the most part- reliable and steadfast, a constant companion that has seen us through the good and bad times. Yet, paper is also cumbersome, time-consuming, and –something no veterinary practice owner wishes to hear – costly. Either because we don’t yet see the benefits of a paperless system or we simply don’t like change (which is entirely possible and not without its merits in the veterinary practice community), going paperless hasn’t quite yet taken the firm hold so many believe it should. But, I’m here to tell you that going paperless is no longer the hassle it once may have appeared to be. Given the ease-of-use of most current veterinary practice paperless platforms, the increasing demand for mobile-friendly businesses, and the numerous veterinary cloud-based software systems now available, it is nearly impossible nowadays to argue for a paper-based system. As with any comparison of this magnitude, there will always be some give and take. Having said that, let’s get perhaps the biggest detractors of going paperless out of the way.

The difficulty of the transition from a paper-based system to a paperless one is one of the few remaining arguments against going paperless still out there, but quite frankly it’s a talking point that loses ground every day. What I am speaking of is the fear many veterinary practice owners have that going paperless – if they haven’t already- will give way to learning curves and breakdowns in workflow, veterinary clients may become upset as changes occur, inefficiencies will ultimately arise and the flow of business and profit margins will be affected. Granted, it is always healthy to have suspicions and keep a keen eye on anything that may change or affect efficiency and productivity. But, it is 2016, not 2006. The reality is, technological literacy (particularly among the younger generations now entering the workforce in droves) is up; computers and operating systems are no longer foreign languages to the average person. Moreover, the number of mobile users is growing, which means the demand for mobile-based platforms is growing. If anything, the average veterinary client is now more readily prepared for a paperless system than they ever were before. Additionally, the average veterinary assistant tasked with learning the paperless system is more than likely already technologically versed to some degree, making that once daunting learning curve far more manageable, if not nearly painless. Of course, any transition is going to bring with it bumps and hiccups, but this notion that a technological transition is nothing but a pitfall simply isn’t the case in a technologically-versed 2016.

Data security, or the notion that files simply aren’t as secure electronically, goes down much the same route as the transition argument. While a veterinary practice paper-based system requires the physical removal of files (thus making them seemingly harder to steal), they can also be subject to physical and thereby permanent damage. More often than not, there are not multiple copies, so the damage is often irreversible. Additionally, there is the longstanding fear of hackers gaining access to sensitive data stored electronically or files being damaged by viruses or malware. But, once again, this is 2016, not 2006. Nowadays, particularly through veterinary practice cloud-based software, data is backed up through multiple systems to multiple locations. This makes data security far more robust, as well as providing multiple copies of files to reduce to potential for data loss.

Although no argument is ever definitively right all of the time, it would seem that those few remaining arguments against going paperless have lost some serious steam. If nothing else, simply consider the fact that technological evolution over time has given way to the paperless system. It is never a good idea to invoke change for the sake of change. This certainly may have been the case 10 or even 5 years ago, when the notion of going paperless was considered more of a revolution. But now, given the current technological climate, going paperless is no longer a daredevil’s endeavor. Going paperless is now an evolutionary process, an opportunity to let your veterinary practice evolve and progress.

As a sort of bonus, here are a few additional ways that going paperless can benefit your business:

  • the access time for veterinary medical records and data, when paperless, is instantaneous
  • veterinary medical records can be edited and updated at any time from anywhere
  • the copying and sharing of data can occur instantly whenever it is needed
  • redundancies and file maintenance, as well as file loss, can be avoided with the help of electronic systems
  • going paperless can vastly reduce the amount of space needed for file and data storage, which can, in turn, save money
  • the legibility and accuracy of files and veterinary medical records improves when digitally stored and maintained
  • the environmental impact seems rather obvious and self-explanatory, but you can learn more here (that may be a little snarky, but I felt that we should focus on the less obvious business benefits first)

EasyDVM Practice Software is a cloud-based veterinary practice management software system. We pride ourselves in offering a system that is user-friendly, easy to learn for new team members, full-featured and elegant in its simplicity. Best of all, all devices, multiple users, all your clients and patients, always affordable.