How your PMS can help you stand out

Arguably, that’s your medical knowledge and skill. The reasons are:

• clients don’t have sufficient medical knowledge to make any distinction between the skill level of your practice and the next
• most practices appear to be hygienic and professional
• most have impressive equipment that helps diagnose problems, such as digital radiography, in-house lab equipment and so on

You’ll notice cost isn’t mentioned; that’s because, in most client surveys done over the past 10 years, cost has come way down the list of why clients choose a practice. That doesn’t mean it’s not a consideration, but other factors are more important to them. Basically, it comes down to trust – do they believe they can trust you with the care of their animals? As patients cannot tell their owner how well they think you’re performing, it’s left to the perception clients have of your practice.

So the answer to what sets you apart is how clients feel about the way your staff (and you) are treating them. That distils down into how, and what, you’re communicating and who is doing it. There’s no substitute for friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff, but your computer system can make their job much easier.

Communication

The first step is to get rid of the notion the veterinary surgeon is the sole communicator for the practice. All staff who come into contact with clients must be trained and capable of doing their part. The objective is to create a situation where messages to clients are consistent, regardless of who is delivering them.

Obviously, those employees who have the initial and final contact with clients during a visit or telephone call play a critical role. Typically, they’re your receptionists. Unfortunately, they do not have the advantage of veterinary education and need help. This is where your practice management system (PMS) is of real benefit.

Develop a set of scripts that help staff explain the benefits of treatments in your standards of care. Your system can automatically display those that are appropriate for clients’ animals based on rules you’ve predefined. They can help your staff provide consistent and meaningful information to clients – that’s part of client education and explains your value, as well as reinforcing their trust in your patient care. A goal is to have clients remember “cost is only a factor in the absence of value” when comparing your practice with any competitor.

Surveys consistently say clients wish to be informed of the best way they can ensure their animals have a good quality of life. You already do that, to some extent, with your reminder process; however, don’t confine reminders to vaccinations – add, for example, parasiticides, annual health exams, diet food and dental checks to the process. They can all be automatically sent and, if you use email or text message reminders, at little extra cost.

A recent US study (http://publications.ovma.org/i/231906/273) showed 70 per cent of clients used Google to research problems affecting their pets. They want to know what’s going on, so why not encourage them to consider you as their educator of choice? To be proactive in avoiding any misinformation they could get from Dr Google, use your system to build a whole series of informative messages in an education campaign template for various topics. Each of the messages can then be automatically sent to selected clients on a predefined schedule, and you can choose the method of delivery, such as Twitter, email or SMS.

While on the topic of client education, do not underestimate the power of your invoice. It’s almost guaranteed to be read and can be a source of valuable information for clients. Replace cryptic and confusing descriptions of services with explanations clients can understand. Explain the importance of what you’ve done and how it’s all aimed at ensuring the health of the patient. All of these descriptions can be predefined in templates and printed automatically – you’ll use more ink and paper, but the return from increasing clients’ knowledge and trust is well worthwhile. I dislike the use of supermarket-style receipts – they’re just a list of charges that encourage clients to focus on cost. You’re helping commoditise your own professional services. Remember, differentiation for commodities is by cost and availability – there’s no value placed on knowledge, experience and capability.

For health care plans to be of real benefit to your practice, clients should always renew on the plan’s anniversary. Unfortunately, they often forget and haven’t budgeted for the cost. It will show you care for their pet’s health if you send them an email a month or so before the renewal date – showing any treatments still outstanding on the plan, as well as reminding them of the upcoming renewal. Your system should be able to help you complete the task with the minimum of effort.

Convenience

Obviously, location has a significant role in a client’s decision to choose your practice and your PMS can do little to help with that.

However, there are other activities where a system can help. Providing the facility for clients to make appointments online can be very useful in saving their time and making it more convenient for them. It can also work very well for your practice as long as its application is well thought through. There is one consideration that’s often overlooked in the excitement of the technology. You are losing an opportunity to discuss the care needs of patients with clients when they call for an appointment. That can be a crucial step in achieving the consistent and repetitive communication that’s so important in educating clients and getting their agreement for the services.

You could replace this lost opportunity by adding a text message, generated by your PMS, reminding them of their upcoming appointment – or with a list of clients to call to remind them and discuss the care needed. As pet insurance is becoming more prevalent, clients will welcome your practice taking away the responsibility for fi ling and management of claims. Your computer system can perform most tasks and remove the burden on your staff’s time.

Predefined information

You’ve probably recognised most of the functions we’ve discussed depend on having predefined information. This content is essential to the success of the system and can take a good amount of time to create. Fortunately, more comprehensive software will have a significant amount already available for your use – your job is to review and make those changes you feel reflect your practice’s protocols – and that requires much less effort.

Once these functions have been set up, the majority of the tasks can be done by your computer with little work required of your staff. If your PMS has the capabilities, use them and differentiate yourself from the crowd.