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I have been a long time lurker to this site but I finally made an account and I have a question I have been thinking about for months!!
I applied this cycle and I am waiting on an acceptance letter. I have a pretty good shot at getting in which made me think about my future as a veterinarian. Since around half of veterinarians own there own practice I decided to post here for some good advice, since a lot of you may be interested in running a business.
So I have a few questions. I have worked at a few different vet clinics doing kennel work, and the main problem I see is not enough job satisfactions especially with the techs. They are all living pay check to pay check and barley scrapping by. Needless to say, being educated people, they leave the profession for a higher paying job. So one of my questions is why don't vets let techs work off commission? The more that the sell the more money they make- an incentive that would allow them to make more money. How much should we be paying our vet techs because I don't feel like 14$ an hour is enough!! Should your head vet tech make more? How much more? Half of what your vets make? I think that they are extremely under appreciated since they are so essential to running a practice. The happier the techs are, and staff overall for that matter, the better your business will run. And in turn the more money you will make. I think that having good techs come and go is extremely bad for business. You have to constantly be re-training and no one has stuck it out long enough to actually be an "expert" for that clinic.
It does not make sense to me why a x ray tech, for example, starts at 50,000 a year and has the ability to move up into higher positions and our vet techs start at 23-25K. Same amount of schooling. Much different pay. I understand that clinics don't make a ton of money, which is why working on commission would be the better option for our vet techs. Thoughts?
My second question. If you lower your prices of routine visits and procedures would this ultimately increase your revenue since you will be probably getting more clients? I am not saying lower the quality of medicine, just have prices set lower then the competition around you. I got this idea when my mom called 14 vet clinics to find the cheapest one for just annual shots. The vet was great and my dog got her shots. That vet got our business, not because he is great, but because he was the cheapest. And the reason he keeps our business is because he practices good medicine.
It is my dream to own my own small animal vet clinic one day and I really enjoy the business side of the profession. When I am working in kennels I watch how the clinic is run and think about all the ways we can make it better. Of course, I don't express my opinion to the vet, after all I am just a kennel worker, and probably more under appreciated then the techs!
I applied this cycle and I am waiting on an acceptance letter. I have a pretty good shot at getting in which made me think about my future as a veterinarian. Since around half of veterinarians own there own practice I decided to post here for some good advice, since a lot of you may be interested in running a business.
So I have a few questions. I have worked at a few different vet clinics doing kennel work, and the main problem I see is not enough job satisfactions especially with the techs. They are all living pay check to pay check and barley scrapping by. Needless to say, being educated people, they leave the profession for a higher paying job. So one of my questions is why don't vets let techs work off commission? The more that the sell the more money they make- an incentive that would allow them to make more money. How much should we be paying our vet techs because I don't feel like 14$ an hour is enough!! Should your head vet tech make more? How much more? Half of what your vets make? I think that they are extremely under appreciated since they are so essential to running a practice. The happier the techs are, and staff overall for that matter, the better your business will run. And in turn the more money you will make. I think that having good techs come and go is extremely bad for business. You have to constantly be re-training and no one has stuck it out long enough to actually be an "expert" for that clinic.
It does not make sense to me why a x ray tech, for example, starts at 50,000 a year and has the ability to move up into higher positions and our vet techs start at 23-25K. Same amount of schooling. Much different pay. I understand that clinics don't make a ton of money, which is why working on commission would be the better option for our vet techs. Thoughts?
My second question. If you lower your prices of routine visits and procedures would this ultimately increase your revenue since you will be probably getting more clients? I am not saying lower the quality of medicine, just have prices set lower then the competition around you. I got this idea when my mom called 14 vet clinics to find the cheapest one for just annual shots. The vet was great and my dog got her shots. That vet got our business, not because he is great, but because he was the cheapest. And the reason he keeps our business is because he practices good medicine.
It is my dream to own my own small animal vet clinic one day and I really enjoy the business side of the profession. When I am working in kennels I watch how the clinic is run and think about all the ways we can make it better. Of course, I don't express my opinion to the vet, after all I am just a kennel worker, and probably more under appreciated then the techs!