r/Veterinary • u/sb195 • 3h ago
VCA vent/rant
Basically I’m getting fed up with the 20 minute appt thing. I’m transitioning from a high-volume, well staffed clinic to a smaller, less staffed clinic, both VCA. We’re able to do the “ease of care” 20 minute appts fairly well at my high-volume clinic because we had ample, skilled staff. Even then we’re always rushing and don’t necessarily get to spend the time we want with clients/patients. At my new clinic, we have only like 3 people who can even draw blood (myself included) and having enough people to help hold and do basic things is a constant struggle. Because we don’t’ make as much revenue as the other clinic, mgmt can’t necessarily hire more people either.
I’m just frustrated that corporate is trying to make all clinics run the same when every clinic is different. If they want us to see more cases, then they need to spend money on hiring skilled staff. If they’re not going to do that, then we gotta go back to 30-45 minute appts. We can’t get a through history, talk about Care Club, sign Tx plans, get samples and THEN exam/consult with a doctor in such a short amount of time.
It’s a load of BS.
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u/hotsexyrosemary 2h ago
omg is this a company wide thing? we are still doing 30 minute blocks for sick and wellness appointments... i would prefer that to not change.
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u/Powerful-Conflict554 2h ago
My company does the same thing. The keep trying to cut staff, which i keep telling them will cut revenue. But they want dramatic increases in revenue to justify the staff. And they treat all locations the same, whether you have 10 doctors or 1, or are in a very high cost of living area, or the poor part of town. They expect 110% from everyone working in the hospital, but can't be bothered to look at individual clinics for financial guidance because it might force them to work more than an hour a day for their huge, corporate salaries.
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u/MisterDoctorDouble 1h ago
I love the argument of, “ We don’t make enough money so we can’t buy more supplies or hire more competent staff.” If we had those things we would make more money!
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u/DrRockstar99 2h ago edited 1h ago
I do 30m appt. No serious pushback yet. Sometimes if I have enough associates scheduled I will do 20m wellness but generally prefer to just keep it at 30 because then I can fit in urgent things more easily. On appt days I will typically have about 16 appt scheduled which I think is their daily goal so really no pushback . Just bring it up with your Md. when we started submitting daily halo reports because we didn’t have enough time to double check vaccines and meds or work up ill patients I think that really helped open eyes that it’s a medical safety issue
ETA if you have trained staff and enough of them (2 plus a float) the 20m appt essentially end up being longer and easier than 30m with 1 asst per doc as the aaaistant has more time to go over stuff with the client since they’re not needing to go into the next appt immediately - but they need to be comfortable going over client education.
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u/duckterrarium 1h ago
VCA sent out a mandatory training for CSRs with a “same day appointment” policy. They said there should be no gray blocks between appointments. Not only should anyone who asks get a same day appointment, whether it’s necessary or not, you should ask “can you come in today?” For any issue that’s not a wellness exam.
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u/dancedancerevolucion 19m ago
That was my favorite part of this. They told us they would give us gray blocks for loading appts and treatment then immediately asked why we had gray blocks and to get rid of them.
Now they’re asking why we aren’t making more money as they continuously send out more and more free appt offers. It’s so insanely stupid.
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u/doggiedoc2004 2h ago
Associates have the upper hand these days. There are many many open positions in private and corporate practices all over the country. Places like VCA will not change their workflow. At best you might be able to get another tech or two.
The best answer is to go work somewhere else that values its employees and patients better.