Starting Your Own Veterinary Hospital?

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Your practice is unique. Our vet equipment package deals can be customized down to the smallest veterinary equipment detail. At apexx, experience the difference. We specialize in consultation, and will ensure you have every piece of vet equipment your practice wants. Veterinary equipment is what we do. We know the right questions to ask, what to avoid and we know the advantages of each manufacturer and model of equipment we offer based on your criteria.

Getting started is easy. Contact an Equipment Consultant today to get started, or check out the tools below.

How To Start Your Own Vet Clinic

A vet practice requires a great deal of planning before opening.

There are many things that go into owning a vet clinic, such as finding staff, getting licensed, and buying equipment. In addition to these tasks, there are also many other responsibilities, including ensuring your patients remain healthy and providing care when they get sick.

It takes time to build up a successful practice. You must be prepared to invest money into equipment and supplies.

Start Up Costs For A Veterinary Clinic

What are the costs involved in opening a veterinary practice?

Veterinary clinics have many costs associated with them. These include the cost of the building, monthly overhead, supplies, equipment, medications and employee salaries. In addition to these expenses, other costs need to be considered when running a veterinary clinic. For example, it is essential to consider how much money you will spend on insurance, maintenance and repairs of your facility.

In some cases, an owner may not know what they can expect regarding repair or maintenance costs until they purchase their first veterinary clinic. This is why it’s crucial to have a thorough understanding of the financial health and stability of your potential vet practice partners before you make any commitments.

The cost of all of these can vary based on your location. Still, the equipment is pretty even if you purchase from a reputable company like apexx Veterinary Equipment.

Here is a general list of equipment and ancillaries you’ll need, along with approximations of how much to budget for, subject to the size and scope of your expansion or start up:

• Medical/Surgical equipment – $30,000 – $250,000+
• Lab equipment – $30,000 – $50,000
• Kennel equipment – $10,000 – $50,000+
• Waiting room/Examination rooms setup – $10,000 – $20,000+
• Clerical/Bookkeeping setup – $2,000 – $5,000
• Practice management software – $3,500 – $15,000
• Insurance – $2,000+
• Marketing materials – $2,000+

Location, Location, Location

Finding the right location for your business is significant. You must decide whether you want to buy a practice, rent a space, or build a new hospital or clinic from scratch. You’ll need to consider financial factors when making this decision, but you also need to consider your competitors.

How many other practices exist in the same geographic area as yours? What makes yours different? If the existing vets are already catering to their client’s needs, you’ll find it extremely difficult to be profitable.

If you’re looking to buy an existing facility, have someone assess it first to ensure that you are buying something that you can make or continue to make profitable.

Consider these factors for an ideal location:

1. Signage—Consider where signs can be placed and how much space is available for signage. Other business competing for signage space and things like monuments, which may or may not be permitted to house signage, can factor in.
2. Client exposure—Being conveniently located for clients is important. “You want to have your practice 2 to 3 miles from the suburban area. You want to be close to where those houses are, you want to be close to where people live, within an 8-to-10-minute drive. People don’t want to drive very far. Now, that’s different with specialty hospitals, but [this is true] just for a general practice.” – Brad Sheasby, Animal Arts
3. Accessibility—Is the building visible from major roadways and easily accessed from major transit routes? Be aware of any natural obstacles that may prevent clients from seeing the practice like trees, hills and lakes.
4. Parking—Is there sufficient parking available? It is vitally important to have parking spaces directly in front of the practice and not forcing clients to walk a long distance to the building from the closest available parking space.
5. Buildability—”Long and narrow layouts tend to make it difficult to expand and build out, which is why it is better to have a rectangular-shaped building with an open floor plan.” – Vicki J. Pollard, Animal Arts

Once the location has been secured and all necessary permits obtained, the clinic needs to have a variety of supplies, medications, medical equipment, and laboratory instruments to make the business run its day-to-day operations.

Financing

How are you going to pay for your building, equipment, supplies, marketing, and overhead?

Even if you have cash, talk to your accountant or financial consultant. Based on your individual financial position and goals, leasing or financing may be a preferable route, to maintain asset fluidity. Especially important is to consider keeping financing for your building separate from your equipment budget.

When the contractor gives you the bad news that they’re over budget on the build or remodel, having separate financing in place for equipment will ensure that you won’t have to sacrifice the quality or quantity of equipment indicated in your business plan, deemed necessary to provide comprehensive care for your patients and to generate the income you desire.

What equipment is needed to start a veterinary clinic?

Any new veterinary clinic must have specific tools and technology, from exam tables to autoclaves. Veterinarians, like any profession, must acquire specific equipment before opening their practice and treating animals.

Veterinarians can provide top-quality, efficient animal care using these tools, gadgets, and systems. Please do not forget about these items when composing your clinic equipment list. Here is a list of some of the most critical veterinary equipment for a new veterinary clinic.

When establishing your veterinary clinic, you must acquire various tools and technological devices, including those not listed above, such as electrosurgical devices, defibrillators, microscopes, centrifuges, scales, tonometers, cages, lasers and patient warming systems. You’ll want to ensure your equipment is durable and high-quality. Equally important to quality, is the company from whom you choose to buy. Are they available, like apexx Veterinary Equipment, to provide professional support and service for the life of the equipment in which you’re about to make an investment and will rely on to provide patient care and your income. Ask to speak with an Equipment Consultant at apexx to get a comprehensive list of recommended equipment for a new Start Up or Expansion.

Building Your Veterinary Team

To provide your pet patients the care they need most, you will have to bring in some great people to help out.

All businesses need a wide range of specialists, and your job as a veterinary entrepreneur is to decide which ones you’ll need when you start growing into a more significant business.

Of course, these responsibilities should be shared among all your team members. However, there’s still an important reason for you, as the owner/manager, to know what position each member will successfully fulfill in order for them all to work collaboratively together toward one common goal.

This knowledge about what each specialist does best and is skilled at helps create a successful veterinary practice. It allows for preparations that meet specific needs and ultimately make your practice more productive when employees can hop on board quickly, thanks to their expertise in their respective niche areas!

It is up to you to decide what positions you need to hire for, but here are the following positions that most vet practices tend to have:

• Another qualified veterinarian, someone you can count on – to help when your workload gets overwhelming.
• Veterinary technicians.
• Veterinary Assistants.
• An office manager or receptionist.

If you struggle to find the right people, an employment agency might be an excellent way to help fulfill the necessary positions.

Develop A Solid Marketing Strategy

Opening a practice today is similar to opening your doors on the first day of business in many industries: you need people to show up at your door with money to exchange on a regular basis.

A marketing plan that creates an adequate flow of sales and customers is essential. You need to have cash coming in!

Remember to consider client retention because it’s often easier to keep people returning. Consider a referral program that rewards clients who recommend you. Promotional offers are another way to maintain a steady stream of clients coming in, but you need to ensure they don’t go unused, or they’re not going to be worth as much!

Wellness plans are also a great way to ensure that you have revenue because these are consistent annual visits and monthly payments that create predictable cash flow.

What are the ongoing expenses for a veterinary practice?

Vet clinics must always have a steady supply of prescription medication for their patients’ needs. Your medicine and specialty food inventory will be one of the most significant ongoing expenses.

You’ll need to invest some of your monthly budget on a marketing strategy until your business is established, and continuing thereafter.

Payroll is likely going to be your most significant expense. You have a team of people on the front line and behind the scenes ensuring your business runs smoothly. Customers will interact with them more than anyone. Treat your employees as valuable assets, and the company will be well-rewarded for it.

Wrapping Up

Starting or expanding a veterinary practice is not easy work. You need to be ready to do a lot of research to effectively begin your veterinary hospital, including ensuring that you know what it takes in terms of equipment, costs, and much more before providing veterinary services. 

First, surround yourself with consultants, not salespeople. Instead of just another quote from another salesperson who wants to sell you something, apexx’s Equipment Consultants take time to understand your budget, timeline and preferences to find solutions to fit YOUR objectives. Experience the apexx difference.

You went to school to improve, extend and save animals’ lives, not to trouble-shoot and repair equipment.  Make a smart investment into equipment and let an apexx Equipment Consultant manage your equipment selection, ordering, shipment and delivery.  Applying pharmaceutical’s “best price today” philosophy to equipment will cost you more money in the long run, reduce your hospital’s efficiency and guarantee future headaches.

You’ll be relying on your equipment to deliver patient care for the next several years. It has to be done right, the first time. Don’t cut corners. apexx Veterinary Equipment can make one of the largest and most complicated tasks on your Start Up / Expansion list easy and comfortable.  You may equip one or two hospitals in your lifetime. apexx has equipped over 675 hospitals and counting, so we have the experience of knowing the pitfalls to avoid and the expertise to know how to do it right, on time and within budget.

Finally, allowing apexx to manage your equipment selection, ordering, shipment and delivery opens your time to focus on your building, personnel, marketing, and your family. Based on your budget, timeline and preferences, and dependant on our experience and expertise in veterinary capital medical equipment, you’ll get the right solutions to operate your dream Veterinary Hospital or Clinic from day one.