3 Reasons generic ERP Fails Veterinarians

According to IBIS World research, the Veterinarian industry in North America had 50,248 US (2020) and Canada had 6,129 (2019) Veterinarian Service business’s operating in an environment of rapidly increasing competition. How will veterinarian businesses differentiate themselves in the future?

Higher specialization is already radically changing the veterinary business – shaping up to look a lot like the human healthcare system including hospitals, walk-in clinics, advances in surgical and dental services. Veterinarians who chose their specialty services earlier, will have the edge over general vet service providers.
Veterinarian training and expertise demand is coming from a changing client base. This change is especially seen in the “on farm” large animal operations who are consolidating and increasing their inhouse expertise and looking for greater partnerships with their veterinarian service. Organizations who keep their veterinarians and focus on the client needs will differentiate themselves.
The number of services available and the need to properly schedule equipment, drug deliveries, and emergency veterinarian services is upping the overall complexity of the business. Organizations able to track this and offer an online way to interact with clients will be able to differentiate themselves.

This overall state of the market drives the need to form partnerships with other specialists; driving up the need to track referrals and possible revenue sharing. The need is even more critical, to verify your clients are satisfied with their interactions with your partner specialists. How much would it benefit a service based to organization to schedule follow ups, calls and empower the veterinarians to have the “historical snapshot” of those referrals, drug purchases and conversations?

Here are 3 reasons why veterinarian service-based organizations struggle with generic ERP/Accounting systems to run their business’s.

The veterinarian industry is highly labor intensive, so the need to maximize high value interactions is critical for a veterinarian service business to succeed. Generic software systems, track PO’s, SO’s, Customer details and GL reports, but they don’t help the organization to maximize the veterinarians time and make service-based billing easy. For example, an “on farm” delivery specialist or veterinarian should be able to make up a bill or scan a barcode and receive customer signature for delivery/services rendered on customer location.
As specialization of services and the need for seamless partnerships grow within the industry – the customer satisfaction will become increasingly complex. Generic software systems do not facilitate the kind of electronic collaboration with your partners – either inbound or outbound necessitating manual interactions like phone calls and, Ugghhh fax’s or manually typed up emails. A specialized veterinarian system can eliminate this transactional bottleneck allowing for greater visibility against your client, lower cost (no need to retype) and less billing errors.
Standard software solutions find it difficult to calculate and track complex rebate systems both from your suppliers (drug companies) and your clients. The ability to properly manage delivery fees as an example to clients, or to calculate quarter end quantity rebates against your actual product costs from drug companies (so you have an accurate calculation of product margins). These features are critical to give proper oversight to your ever-increasing complex business.

The team at Just Vet Solutions understands these unique challenges facing the veterinarian service industry. Our team has helped companies like yours meet these ever-changing needs through a combination of veterinary company experience, and a strong but flexible solution called SoftVet. If you are performing backflips in your business, to accommodate your software call us and we would be happy to see if SoftVet is a fit for you.

References

https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/number-of-businesses/veterinary-services-united-states/
https://www.ibisworld.com/canada/market-research-reports/veterinary-services-industry/