What High-Functioning Veterinary Practices Do Differently

In this episode, we explore what high-functioning veterinary practices do differently, and what consistently sets them apart.

Our panel breaks down the systems and behaviors that drive success, from clear operational rhythms and defined accountability to proactive communication, aligned expectations, and shared ownership across the team. 

To close, we share simple but powerful habits that struggling practices can adopt today!

If you're looking to build a more stable, high-performing practice, this episode is a must-listen.

Panelists for this episode include:

• Brenda Tassava Medina, CVPM, CVJ, MVLCE, President of Encore Veterinary Consulting
• Michelle Winter, CVPM, CVJ, VP of Operations at Encore Vet Group
• Shannon Lovley, CVPM, Consultant at CB Strategies
• Susie Crockett, CVPM, Director of Practice Management at Noah's Animal Hospitals

Thanks for listening!

Website: https://encorevet.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Welcome aboard. You're listening to Flight Plan Quick Consult, your go-to podcast for veterinary insights that are fast, focused, and designed to elevate your practice. I'm your host, Brenda Tassova Mandina from Encore Veterinary Consulting. Whether you're between appointments or heading into a strategy session, we've got takeoff ready tips, tools, and takeaways to keep your team soaring. So buckle up and set a course for what high functioning practices do differently. Today's panel includes Michelle Winter, Shannon Lovely, and Susie Crockett. Susie, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Absolutely. So my name is Suzy Crockett. I have a bachelor's degree in organizational communication from Purdue University. I've been a CVPM since 2009, and I'm currently the director of practice management for an independent group of hospitals in the greater Indianapolis area with GP low cost and specialty.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Thank you, Susie.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Next up is Shannon Lovely. Hello, I am Shannon Lovely. I'm a certified veterinary practice manager, a VMG facilitator, as well as a consultant to veterinary hospitals across the country. I work with hospitals to improve operations, strengthen teams, and build sustainable practices.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Thank you for being with us today, Shannon. And the one and only Michelle Winter.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Brenda, Michelle Winter, also a CVPM back since 20, when was it, 2002? And big history in the educational side of veterinary medicine. But currently I'm the Vice President of Operations for Encorvet Group, where we have 55 practices, mostly in the eastern U.S., but in the Ohio Valley and all the way across to Colorado, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Yes, and thank you for being here. These three panelists actually work with so many practices, and I just thought they were a perfect panel to put together for this particular topic. So my first question, and what everybody is wondering, is across well-made well-run practices that you see, what systems or behaviors consistently show up regardless of the size or the geographic location of those practices? Um, let's start with you, Shannon. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Um, I see probably three patterns that I address when I'm on site at practices. Um, clear operational rhythms, um, defined accountability, and basically proactive communication. Every single practice I'm at, every time I get down to it, it all falls under communication. Whether it was too much, too little, not in the right place, not to the right people. But what I can say is strong practices don't rely on one heroic manager, right? They distribute ownership. Everyone knows what they're responsible for and how to be successful and how that's measured. It's rhythms instead of reacting to problems. What I want to do is be proactive rather than reactive. Having regular leadership meetings, financial reviews, staff communication systems. We got to create stability in these practices.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

And that that is communication to a T. I mean, just keeping that that open for all the for all the team to understand. What what are your thoughts, Michelle?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

I'm gonna take a little different um approach on this. I agree with everything Shan said. That's amazing and absolutely foundational. Um, one of the things I was thinking, and probably it's my education background, it's having a leadership team and and the whole team that is very grounded in and comfortable with the levers that make a difference in a practice. And what I mean by that is I'll pick, you can pick any example, but I'll pick, let's just say, let's say, hey, our cogs are high. How do we what are we doing? Good example. If you don't know the levers to pull, if you don't know that you're cash versus accrual and that cash, you do need to stop buying so much stuff on your P for your PL to be impacted. But if you're accrual, that it has nothing to do with what you purchase and everything to do with what you sell, and therefore your levers are very different. You've got to focus on your purchase price and your selling price and your um service mix and your charge capture and um you know inventory counts and not letting those things shrink. Knowing the levers keeps us from being emotionally reactive to what we're trying to deal with. And often we do get upset about our results and knowing those levers and being very grounded in what we can do for whatever situation, it might not even be financial, but being very grounded in the levers that actually move the needle, I think is probably one of the most important things for a leadership team.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Thank you for that, Michelle. What are your thoughts on this, Susie?

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, so I actually kind of had a blend um and then a different spin too. So um communication for sure. And the way I had laid it out was um clear expectations that were aligned across all roles. So for any well-run practice, I don't care if you're low cost, if you're urban, if you're country, like it doesn't matter if your expectations aren't aligned across your clinic and they're not clear, you're gonna have a train wreck every day. Um, and so that was, and that kind of bleeds into the communication. And so that was something I said, hey, that's identifiable in every really well structured practice. Um, I think the other thing that I thought about was structured training and utilization of the team. Um, again, when you maybe your leadership is not there or the doctor, like you have that structured foundation based that comes from your training and utilization of your team. They don't have to ask permission for every little thing. They can, they're trusted, they can, you know, goes into your culture, like they can just move. Um, but then I also thought present leadership, because I think a lot of times we can have great teams, great expectations. We have all the SOPs, but if the leadership is absent and the team doesn't feel like they can approach them or they're engaged, it doesn't matter how good your workflow is, how good your internal processes are. Um so those were kind of the three components that I felt were the most important in a well-run.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

You brought up a really interesting point, and I'm gonna ask the three of you, any one of you, to kind of chime in and answer on this, but you know, from a self-awareness standpoint and help our practice owners, practice managers who are listening, what does an absent leader look like that they might not realize is making them absent.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Even if you're there, if you're not engaged on the floor and understand the floor, that could be viewed as an absent leader. And it not that they don't have work to do in that office, there's a lot to get done, but you still have to get out there.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

I think too, uh, to add to that is giving team members all the responsibility, but none of the power. And constantly feeling like you have to go ask somebody the question do I have permission to do this? Do I have permission to do that? And the owner is sitting right there, but you can't ask the owner, right? So, but they've given the practice manager the responsibility, but none of the power. And I see that a lot. Like, we don't have control of cogs because we don't even know what cogs are in some cases. We've got a maybe a technician or a CSR. Well, you've been here the longest. Now you're the manager. Go figure it out. And you know, we've seen that time and time again. I was oops, I became a manager. I could have written that book. Thank you to the person that did. But I think what we when we're we it comes down to communication again, right? Setting the expectations. And I have my three C's clear, concise, consistent, and I'm applying whatever SOPs, rules, whatever you want to call them across the board, clear, concise, consistent. And if I'm giving you the responsibility, you're also gonna get that power.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, and I agree with all those things. I think for me, it's follow-through and feedback. So if I'm an absent leader, I'm not doing either of those things. So um we have leaders that say, yeah, I'll get to it, or they never, they never follow up with even if it's a no, or uh, hey, we can't do this right now, um, or I'm I'm unavailable and here's why. Um, and then feedback. And I think as leaders, to be engaged to Michelle's point, like you have to ask for feedback. And sometimes we don't like to sit in that um self-thought um because sometimes it's not always pretty. Um, so those would be things that if I had an absent leader, they would not be doing.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Okay. Great tips. So, what's one habit or discipline that struggling practices could adopt immediately to start moving towards stability? Let's start with you, Susie.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Ooh, good habit for them that are struggling. I think um just laying out kind of like your strategy, right? And so I think we talk about strategic plan as like company wide, but like kind of like a micro strategy, right? So, what does that look like and involving your um upper leadership, but also your floor leadership? So your lead CSR, your lead technician, identifying those gaps because a lot of times we miss that opportunity as well. And that's where feedback comes into play. What am I missing? As a leader, I can sit here and make this glorious plan, but there's probably either an unintended consequence that I haven't identified or a gap somewhere. So I always kind of start at the beginning of like, what is our goal? What are we, what are we trying to do? Like, who are we trying to serve? Our clients, our patients, um, and what's the result that we'd like to see? And how are we going to get there?

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Great. Thank you so much. Shannon, your thoughts. What's one habit that you could offer up to these practices?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

If I could implement one habit tomorrow in every struggling practice, it would be, and this is for me going back to communication, a 30-minute weekly leadership meeting. Not a complaint session, but a structured review of the things they're struggling with, whether that be staffing, scheduling, financial indicators, operational issues. But, you know, when practices just implement that one thing, making it a habit, making it consistent, they will start seeing improvement, right? So, you know, I can go back to that hero manager problem again. One pattern I see in struggling practice is that they have that hero manager. I'm the one person that everything has to flow through. Can't go through anybody else, has to go through me. I'm the keeper of all the knowledge. And then there's problems, right? So if they build systems and not heroes, they have a better functioning team.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Makes a lot of sense. Um, Michelle, your thoughts on this one. What's what what would you offer up?

SPEAKER_02 11:30

I was gonna say something about strategy. I'm glad Susie said it because my second um answer is kind of it's similar to Shannon's, but it's from a different answer. Um, she had the three C's. I do. I think one great habit is to adopt three R's. And so let me let me share what the three Rs are. It is results, reasons, and remedies. So my tip is to sit with your data and sit with your data because it's part of your story, and often it can be dismissed in Batman because we want to go with how things feel. Well, it's good, it feels good. We got through the day. Okay, but how are you doing? Is this a healthy business? And so the three R's, I think a lot of people get stuck. They understand their results for the most part. They get stuck talking through the reasons but fail to get to the remedies. What do we know will work to improve our results? It can be a whole host of things. Um, but often if you don't sit with that, and I like doing that with what was recommended on a 30-minute leadership meeting, you know, um, like do your KPIs in that 30-minute leadership meeting once a week. So you're not even waiting for month end or period end results, you're looking weekly at lead indicators to what's going to impact and what can we do to influence those. That's the remedies.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

So a strategic weekly meeting with a scorecard. And I agree, Michelle, they get stuck in that. Okay, here's the reason, here, here's the results, and this is the reason. And we go back to the results. We we we skip that third piece, which is you've got the reason. We have a story. What do we do to to what do we do to lift it up, right? Yeah, yeah. Excellent. I I think that they all three tie together very, very well. Well, thank you all for being a part of today's episode, and thanks for flying with us on Flight Plan Quick Consults. If today's insights helped you climb to new heights, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with your crew. Until next time, keep your mission clear, your team aligned, and your practice soaring.