veterinary assistant – EasyDVM Practice Management Blog

6 Ways A Veterinary Team Member Could Embezzle from Your Practice

by easyDVM

You may not want to think about it, but you could have a thief in your midst. For many veterinary team members, the temptation to embezzle from their employer is real. Sometimes no one may even notice until the culprit’s made off with a substantial amount of money.

Take control of the situation. Here are six all-too-common ways team members on all levels can steal from your practice, and some simple ways to avoid fraud.

1) Deleting or altering invoices.

Your invoices are the lifeblood of your business. They’re how clients and other businesses know what to pay you.

At many businesses, it’s easy to change or even delete an invoice. By changing the amount on an invoice after the customer receives it, an employee could take some of the money paid by the customer. By deleting an invoice, the employee could walk off with all the money, or even provide services to family and friends for free.

This problem exists because there’s no paper trail. In these cases, practice management software is invaluable: it allows management to password protect invoice changes and deletions, and track changes made.

2) Taking cash.

Cash provides your employees an easy way to embezzle. It’s easy for a team member to skim the till. Alternately, if clients aren’t diligent about checking their receipts (or taking a receipt at all), a team member can request more cash than they’ve rung up the client for, and can pocket the difference.

As a rule of thumb, any time there’s cash changing hands, there should be two team members there. All clients should receive receipts, and practices should audit cash registers and receipts regularly.

Worried about tracking invoice deletions? With easyDVM, we can help…

3) Making personal purchases on the company’s credit card.

This one is straightforward: team members use the company credit card for personal expenditures. It’s a classic way of embezzling.

Only select members of your team should be able to use the company credit card. Veterinary practice management software helps managers run reports on spending and see where money’s going. Immediately question unusual purchases.

4) Paying fake vendors.

It can be surprisingly easy to make fake purchases on a company’s behalf. A team member could easily authorize a payment to themselves or a friend.

Veterinary practice software helps businesses run reports on their payments, and detect any purchases that don’t match the practice’s normal routine. Again: if you see a payment to someone you don’t recognize, look into it.

5) Taking inventory home and selling it online.

Normally the profits from selling flea or heartworm products go directly to your business. But a savvy team member can figure out how to take those profits for themselves, without ever touching company money. Team members can swipe drugs or tools, sell them online, and pocket the profits. Particularly brazen team members may even claim the item never came, forcing the supplier to eat the cost and send duplicate items.

Another way is to set up their own account at a vendor that you are paying for. The products ship directly to the employee’s home and you get stuck with the bill.

To counteract this, keep security cameras up, and assign team members to take inventory regularly. Ideally, the team member taking inventory shouldn’t be the same one who’s unpacking items. And use your practice management software to track inventory and cross-reference what you received in the software with the invoices you are paying.

6) Logging hours they didn’t work.

Many businesses let employees report their own hours. Some team members will take advantage of this, logging hours they didn’t work.

Veterinary practice management software will usually let managers see the hours a team member has logged, at a glance. Managers should be present and engaged enough to know if that actually reflects the employee’s presence in the office, or their work. Our easyDVM software even shows the ip address of the device where they clocked in allowing you to easily check that they are in the right place at the right time.

There are many ways to embezzle money from a veterinary practice. By staying diligent, keeping an eye on expenditures, and running regular reports on your veterinary practice management software, you can make sure your employees are on the straight and narrow. Most of your employees are completely honest and your due diligence protects them from being set up by that one bad apple.

5 Great Incentive Programs for Veterinary Employees

by easyDVM

Incentive programs are a great way to motivate employees. But it can be hard to dream up a good incentive program. What you create may not engage your employees like you hoped, or they may have unforeseen consequences.

Constructing a great incentive program requires thinking intelligently about what your employees want and what your practice needs. Every practice will find that different incentive programs work for them, but here are a few ideas on how to motivate your employees to go the extra mile for the people and animals they serve.

1) Incentivizing Working Late or Weekends

It’s a rare employee who’s excited to come in to work on a weekend, or second or third shift. But especially if your veterinary practice provides emergency services, you may not be able to afford to let employees be choosy about the hours they work.

Forcing your employees to work undesirable shifts may hurt morale and reduce the pool of potential job applicants over time. But by offering your employees a little extra money for choosing to work at (comparatively) odd hours, you’ll see more employees eager to take these hours — which will improve the service you provide your clients.

2) Offering a “Beware” Bonus

One of the most common uses for an incentive program is to increase the number of examinations done. But this can be tricky: If you’re not careful, you may see an uptick in unnecessary examinations and procedures as your staff rush to take advantage of the incentive. Your bottom line may improve for a while, but your clients will definitely notice over time and react negatively.

But there are some preventative procedures, like dental examinations, that your staff should be doing with every animal that comes in for a check-up. By offering a “beware bonus” that incentivizes routine tests and exams that your staff may not be doing, you’ll dramatically improve the service you provide.

3) Implementing an Overtime Bonus

Some employees love the chance to take overtime. Others hate it — and because it’s voluntary, you may have a hard time getting your staff to work these extra hours in a pinch. By paying a little extra to employees who choose to work overtime, you’ll encourage more employees to consider the possibility who might otherwise pass it up.

4) Incentivizing Growth

Some practices incentivize referrals — and to be sure, referrals can be a great way to grow a business. But a practice that focuses too much on bringing in new clients without retaining the old ones can suffer.

When incentivizing growth, make it clear what your staff needs to do: Bring in new clients, provide excellent service to existing ones, and encourage clients to schedule check-up and follow-up appointments. By rewarding staff with a percentage of the practice’s growth every year, you’ll see your staff take an active interest in your practice’s well-being.

5) Creating Negative Incentives

Penalizing employee misbehavior, like tardiness or absenteeism, is risky territory. By disincentivizing too many behaviors or making the penalties too severe, you may see employee morale take a serious hit. And if an employee’s behavior is problematic enough that you’re considering docking their pay or removing some other bonus, there’s a strong case to be made that you should be considering firing the employee.

But one of the strongest arguments to be made for a negative incentive “program” is that your employees will sit up and take notice. They may yawn through a meeting about the importance of certain procedures, but if they know they’ll be penalized for not meeting your standards, they’ll pay more attention.

Creating a great incentive program can grow your practice and improve your service. By encouraging your staff to behave in certain ways, you’ll increase motivation and morale, and turn your practice into the thriving place you want it to be.

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..

Training a New Veterinary Employee

by easyDVM

Training is essential to help your new veterinary employees get up to speed in your practice. Training not only helps your employees to avoid making mistakes, but also gives them confidence when interacting with clients and caring for patients. Use these steps to help your new employees learn how to perform important tasks in their new role.

1. Structure Your Training

When training a new veterinary employee, it is important to use a structured training program. Throwing too much training at a new hire all at once is likely to lead to them forgetting important information. Plan the new employee’s training to span a period of several weeks so they have time to learn new skills without feeling overwhelmed.

2. Instruct

Every veterinary practice has its routines and protocols. Rather than throwing your new employees into their roles, take the time to instruct them in the tasks you want them to perform. Provide every employee with instructions they can consult whenever they need to check a protocol.

3. Watch

Many people are visual learners. Watching an experienced employee perform a task gives new hires a chance to pick up tips. Get your team to demonstrate as many procedures as possible during the first few days or weeks of a new hire’s employment. If it is not possible or practical for employees to watch your team carry out every procedure in person, consider using training videos to instruct your new hires.

4. Practice

Employees can’t learn how to do everything perfectly from instructions and demonstrations alone. Give all new employees a chance to practice what they have learned under the supervision of a more experienced team member. This period of practice is essential to let employees ask questions and allow the experts to correct their mistakes.

5. Monitor Progress

Do not assume that all employees will perform perfectly after an initial training period. No one can remember everything perfectly, particularly when they have to take in a lot of information at once. Be sure to review new employees’ performance regularly so you have the chance to correct any mistakes they are making. Be sure to conduct this monitoring in a way that helps your employees feel supported, rather than making them feel like you are waiting to punish them for any error. Always give new team members praise for the things they get right as well as correcting their mistakes.

6. Training Never Ends

Training a new veterinary employee is important, but education should not end when the new hire becomes an established part of the team. Continuing education can benefit all your veterinary employees. Support your veterinarians to meet their continuing education requirements. In addition, remember to check in regularly with your technicians and other employees to find out whether they want any further training. One way to do this is to have an annual or quarterly review meeting with every team member, during which they can discuss their training needs and their goals for the review period.

Conclusion

Training a new veterinary employee is not always easy, but by using a carefully structured training program, you can give all your team members the best possible chance of success. Use the tips given here and remember to check in with your new employees regularly to ensure the success of your training program.

Indirect Veterinary Customer Service: Technology and the Employee-Customer Dynamic

by Hunter Little

I’ve got to say, I am really proud of the title of this blog. If nothing else, I’ve managed to make something that is, at its core, a very simple concept and transform it into a seemingly complicated theory (there is always something humorous about over-complicating simple ideas). When I say “Indirect Customer Service”, what I’m really referring to is the notion of improving customer service by improving other aspects of your business that do not directly deal with customer service. That is to say, addressing customer service indirectly by addressing other areas of your business. Also included in the title is this notion of the employee-customer dynamic, or more specifically, the daily interactions that occur between employees and customers (we can even include employee-to-employee and customer-to-customer interactions).

My theory is quite simple, and is ultimately based on a few basic observations within the workplace. By implementing a few key technological improvements into the lives of employees (with the idea being that these technological installments are meant to make the employees’ work easier), the employees would ultimately be happier and more productive (I promise, this is not some kind of pseudo-communist plot). This direct influence on employees has indirect benefits for customer service. A happier employee is bound to have a pleasant interaction with the customer. If you have ever been introduced to any kind of behavioral-based psychology, then you know that people oftentimes direct emotions at outlets other than the source of their emotions. Thus, an employee that is, for example, stressed out about the complicated process for inputing a new client’s medical history into the medical records database may be more likely to imbue that employee-client interaction with their negative emotions regarding their practice software. The client ends up being the recipient of an employee’s frustration, and thus has a negative customer service experience. Yet, this negative experience had nothing to do with the client. Thus, because we failed to directly address a problem or inefficiency within the workflow dynamic (or the workplace as it applies to the employees), we have indirectly influenced our customer service.

This notion of indirect customer service was one of the driving factors behind the creation of EasyDVM veterinary practice software in the first place. We wanted to create something that was entirely based on a customer-centric model, emphasizing the importance of customer service before anything else. This means that, when we began designing the software, we designed it through trial and error, utilizing the input of our employees throughout the creation process. It is easy to design a software platform that is aesthetically pleasing and loaded with tons of features. but none of that matters if your employees can’t use it. Functionality and ease-of-use became imperative to the creative process behind EasyDVM veterinary practice management software. What I ultimately found was how this indirectly affected customer service. If employees are happy, then clients are happy. It may sound simple or a little overreaching, but I challenge you to try it. Like I have done before, I challenge you to put customer service at the forefront of your business, and see what changes come with that new approach.

Millennials and Veterinary Care: Learn to Grow as Generations Shift

by Hunter Little

It may seem easy to brush off Millennials as the ‘selfish’ generation, occupying a universe in which they are at its social center and where everyone gets a trophy just for participating. Yet, millennials are now the largest living generation- totaling 84.3 million according to the US Census Bureau- and are coming into their marketplace prime, both in terms of earning and spending. They are also entering the civilian workforce in greater numbers, too. So, given their growing demographic presence, is it really smart to continue brushing off millennials? While it is very natural for different generations- i.e. baby boomers, Gen X’ers, etc. – to have difficulties when it comes to productive socialization and interaction, especially in the workplace, bridging the generational gap can be vital to a healthy and productive environment.

Perhaps more important than any particular generational trait, millennials are not to be confused with younger versions of baby boomers or Gen Xers. It is a losing battle to assume that millennials will grow up to fit within the mold you, as a member of a different generation, have constructed for yourself. With each generation comes new and unique external influences and environments that shape the way we develop and interact with the world. Millennials, in particular, are growing up in much more prosperous and affluent era than previous generations. Due to this rise in affluence, people are transitioning to adulthood later than previous generations. According to Generational Insights, a business firm that studies and consults on generational traits and trends, as well as recent statistics on marriage and birth rates*, the mean age of first marriage and the mean age of first-time mothers are all increasing. This means that while millennials do experience the same life stages and milestones as, let’s say, baby boomers, they are experiencing these stages later in life.

There is, however, more to it than simply delayed maturity. How does one, particularly within veterinary medicine, go about meaningfully interacting and engaging with millennials both in the workplace and as customers? The key is to understand the generational traits millennials identify with.¹ While past generations may measure the value of work by the number of hours put in, millennials base their work ethic on the completion of tasks. As research from firms like Generational Insights indicates, millennials don’t enjoy being in the office longer than they have to. The number of hours spent on the job is not the focus, but rather how efficiently one has spent their time and how many tasks or assignments one has completed.

Millennials also like to connect socially with people and seek input from everyone around them. This is a kind of misnomer, however, as many misconstrue this desire for socialization and input as a need for constant positive reinforcement and hand-holding. On the contrary, millennials want to feel needed and be impactful, thus they enjoy learning and developing relevant skills that are valuable to their job. Because of their desire to learn and develop, millennials seek constant communication and feedback that is not only positive but constructive. The importance of communication can also be a two-way street. As much as millennials want to be taught, you can also take the time to learn from them, making the focus on building knowledge collectively rather than viewing the effort of communication and training as a chore.

These generational traits also apply to engaging with millennials as customers. Millennials care about how things will impact their lives on an individual level, both now and in the future. They are also concerned with how you and your services might make them stand out and be more distinct within the world. Thus, your marketing tools, online platforms, etc., must function as educational tools, making them feel like a more educated participant and consumer. This also means that two-way communication and transparency are important. The less automated and more human you appear, the more authentic and distinctive your product becomes in eyes of a millennial. This, of course, has ties back to millennials’ need for social platforms and communication. It’s not just having the ability to stand out and be authentic, but how something stands out and why it becomes distinctive.

So what, then, can be gained from this? Perhaps the most important lesson from all of this is the ever-present value of communication. Take the time to have discussions with your employees and co-workers about these generational differences and learn from these discussions. Such communication can flesh out differences between generations and construct a more cohesive environment for both employees and customers. More often than not, it is the company that is willing to learn and adapt to change that ultimately survives and thrives as time progresses.

¹Generational Insights

References and Additional Resources:

http://atwork.avma.org/2016/01/15/free-webinar-the-impact-of-millennials-on-the-veterinary-workforce/

https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/141101a.aspx

http://www.edelman.com/insights/intellectual-property/8095-exchange/

https://generationalinsights.com

What kind of people are you looking for when you hire a veterinary assistant?

by Sam D Meisler DVM

Warren Buffet – CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway and investor who avoided the internet bubble bursting – stated in a lecture to MBA students that the three characteristics that he looked for in people were energy, intellect and integrity. When you look at your top team members, you will probably find that they possess these attributes and it is these attributes that set them off from the others. Energetic people have initiative and find things to do; they are motivated about their job and energize others. Obviously, one has to have the appropriate intellect for the job or success just will not happen. Integrity, however, is the toughest to determine. And what is integrity anyway?

Stephen Covey of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People fame defines integrity as having that unique combination of character and competency. He illustrates this point by asking would you rather have a competent but greedy surgeon perform a knee surgery on you that you did not need or an honest but incompetent surgeon perform a knee surgery that you did need – or neither.

Integrity implies competency; it implies that one gets the job done and finish tasks, and that one does it well. Someone can ask a person of integrity to do something and not worry about checking up on that person later. But that’s just half the picture. Possessing good character is essential as well. Persons with good character do the “right thing” and are honest, trustworthy and make good choices.

So how does one screen for people with energy, intellect and integrity? Generally, people with energy show it during the interview process. They are interested in what you have to say, excited about the chance to work for you, and have questions. People who are slightly introverted, however, may not show their enthusiasm until they have been on the job for a few weeks. So be careful you don’t exclude a person from your roster just because they were a little shy.

Intellect is easy to screen for. If you are not testing applicants for basic skills like reading, writing and arithmetic, then you should be. You can devise your own screening tests or use an IQ testing company like the Wonderlic Corporation . For reading and writing skills, have them read a passage from literature and then ask them to answer a few short answer essay questions on the passage.

Integrity, on the other hand, is the hardest to screen for. Here you can also “outsource” integrity screening to third parties or try to develop some questions of your own to ask an applicant during an interview. Here are some relevant questions:

Tell me about your last boss?

I would strongly urge you to consider another candidate if the person disparages a former employer. This has more to do with how they will act in your hospital and whether they will disrupt the work place by complaining about you without your knowledge. See Stephen Covey’s article on Be Loyal to those Absent. Warning: don’t expect your prospective applicants to behave better than you.

If a client comes in with a very ill pet and can not afford the medication to treat it, do you think that you should give it to them anyway if it means saving the pets life?

There isn’t necessarily a correct answer on this one. You are the owner or manager of the hospital. How do you want them to act? Should they act on their own and give the medications away or should they ask you about it? Consider how many of your employees fit in the same profile where they can’t always afford the medications either. It’s about trade-offs and about moral trade-offs in particular. How the candidate presents the trade-off to you says a lot about how they would behave in the future.

If you saw a fellow employee smoking marijuana outside of work and it was a long enough time from their next shift as to not interfere with work, what would you do?

This gets at the heart of attitudes towards illegal drugs period. Again, the answer depends on you and how you feel. Be careful, if you don’t mind your employees having relaxed attitudes against drugs for recreational use then expect them to have some relaxed attitudes against stealing if they have a good reason to do so (ie like “I couldn’t afford the Heartgard”).

Describe a product you were able to sell in a previous job position that you didn’t believe in yourself. What techniques did you use to overcome this?

This is sort of a trick question. I would be looking for the “deer in the headlights” look. If they can’t come up with anything then that’s good. If they do come up with something, then examine it carefully. Obviously, in order to sell something that they didn’t believe in, they had to make some sort of trade-off (ie dishonesty vs a paycheck, or dishonesty vs feeding my family). This question is from personal experience. I had a receptionist who was my best “seller” of pre-anesthetic bloodwork and pain medications (before we made them both mandatory). When I asked whether she believed in them, she replied, “Heck no. But I can sell anything.” She later became a very disruptive force in the clinic as soon as she no longer believed in me.

These are just some thoughts on the hiring process. Indeed, it can be very tough. Also, please be mindful of staying well within the law with your interview questions.