How Veterinary Practice Management Software Is Changing

Vet management software is an industry projected to reach 1.07 billion dollars in a few years. There’s a good reason for it!

Veterinary practice management is crucial to patient care. After all, consider all the data points that surface from a simple vet-patient interaction:

• Owner name and address
• Owner contact information
• Owner billing information
• Pet name, breed, age, and gender
• Pet medical history
• The current issue the pet is dealing with
• Microchip information
• Vaccine and checkup schedules

That’s only a small cross-section of the information necessary in veterinary practice management. However, many vets are working with limited resources.

In fact, some vet management software is still tied to CD-ROM desktop versions. Now, veterinary practice management on the cloud is becoming par for the course.

That’s why we’ve assembled a guide to updating veterinary practice management software and what it can do for you. Let’s get started!

Benefits of Veterinary Practice Management Software

The goal of vet management software is simplification. There’s so much that goes on daily in any vet clinic or hospital, and keeping track of is crucial.

With so many workflows going on at any given time, simplification and automation are crucial features of any cloud vet management software. Here are some examples of basic workflows in a vet clinic:

• Appointment management and reminders
• Record management
• Surfacing patient history
• And more

There are lots of benefits associated with this type of software. For instance, when processes are streamlined, you can make critical decisions with ease. You’ll know when you’re running low on inventory, when debts are unpaid, and when operations are in the red.

Cloud vet management software also builds client relationships. The dynamic between an owner and a vet is crucial. In most cases, owners don’t know what’s going on with their cherished pets.

Instead, they put the lives of their valued ‘family members’ in the hands of a medical professional. That’s a lot of trust, and every vet knows it! In this type of dynamic, trust is crucial.

Patients should feel confident and comfortable when their pet is in your care. Vet management software helps with this. For instance, client engagement can improve via software by:

• Sending alerts when vaccinations are due
• Notifying owners when invoices are due
• Sending out diagnosis reports
• Sending out alerts for appointment reminders
• Sending health and wellness checks and follow-ups

Another primary usage of vet practice management on the cloud is centralized data storage. This eliminates paper workflow, which is better for the environment and better for accurate data management.

With cloud vet management, you can easily search records. This allows instant access to medical history, easy billing, and fast access to necessary information.

Disadvantages of Localized Data

While the cloud may be a common data storage solution today, it wasn’t always the case. Today, some vet clinics and hospitals are still using siloed, local data management and storage solutions.

This presents a few issues. For starters, aging systems are frustrating. They don’t work as well as they should. This slows the process, creates the need for band-aid workarounds, and can result in mistakes being made.

It also worsens the generational divide. Younger staff members may not be familiar with CD-ROM desktop versions—after all, there are very few good reasons for someone to know how to use them in today’s day and age.

Desktop versions are also susceptible to data loss. What happens if the computer itself crashes? You may lose a lot of data.

When it comes to patient records, losing data isn’t an option. You need to be able to keep track of allergies, medication history, past surgeries, and so much more.

Why It Doesn’t Work

Local data is also susceptible to being hacked. Billing information, mailing addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses … that’s all information that should be stored securely in the cloud.

Desktop versions also present access issues. If you’re not in the office, what happens when you need to access data? With cloud solutions, you can securely access data and records from anywhere. That’s not the case with CD-ROM desktop versions.

Local solutions also don’t have the same capacity to scale as the veterinary practice grows. At some point, you’ll need to delete data to make room or buy new hardware. Both options are expensive.

Instead, many cloud storage solutions are unlimited. If not, increasing capacity is easy, with so many different capacity options on the market. Often, veterinary practice management on the cloud comes in a pay-as-you-use model.

This remains cost-effective, which is great news for burgeoning practices that need to keep costs low.

Benefits of Cloud Vet Management

These days, the cloud reigns supreme. With increased security, ease of use, and storage capacity, it’s no wonder. However, technology is changing rapidly.

No one can say that we won’t have a superior alternative to the cloud in ten years. Who could have predicted innovations like the cloud, wearable technology, and so forth? However, the cloud retains the ability to update, push out bug fixes, add new features, and adapt to whatever new technology comes next.

That’s why we’re covering some of the most important features of cloud vet management that are crucial to running the best practice you can in 2022. We’ll go over the following:

• Electronic medical records
• Advanced reporting
• Client communication
• Appointments
• Invoicing
• Inventory tracking

This helps break down the cost-value benefits of vet management software on the cloud.

Electronic Medical Records

Sometimes abbreviated as EMR, electronic medical records are critical to accurate treatment. These records are part of a greater whole since they provide the information necessary to send reminders and alerts.

EMR features allow vet practices to keep records in the cloud. Whether systems crash or your team forgets a password or files get destroyed, those health records will always exist.

Depending on the software, you can likely keep detailed records. Want to track treatment history, current prescriptions, and surgery details? What about visit logs, treatment history, and past diagnoses?

With electronic medical records, you can securely store all this information. With a global search function, you can also sift through these data points in real-time. No need to wait while someone digs through a file cabinet for you!

Advanced Reporting

Many people got into the veterinary field because they love animals. Their passion for helping animals drove them through years of school, endless training, and high pressure.

This passionate love keeps them going, even with difficult clients and bad days. While this passion is the core of any veterinary practice, you’re also running a business.

Collecting payments and checking up on overdue bills may not be your favorite thing to do. That’s why automated, advanced reporting is a lifesaver for many veterinary practices.

Often, reporting builds off other features. Visit logs, treatments administered, and prescriptions given can all be logged. Then, accurate reports can be generated from that data.

Reports cover:

• Revenue
• Invoices
• Products, services, prescriptions, or treatments ‘sold’
• Inventory
• And more

This allows you to effectively run your vet practice, boost revenue, keep up-to-date billing, and make sure that your financial health is cared for.

Client Communication

When it comes to building your veterinary practice, your reputation is important. Many people value their pets above all else. After all, they’re almost like another member of the family.

People will religiously pore over reviews of your veterinary practice. They will ask for recommendations and listen to word-of-mouth rumors and news.

A good way to build credibility and a solid reputation is to stay on top of communication. Everyone lives in a fast-paced world, with phones ringing constantly and emails flooding our inboxes.

It’s hard to remember appointment cards, handwritten calendars, and reminder calls. That’s why vet management software provides an invaluable bridge to give value to clients.

With cloud vet management software, you can automate personalized notifications and alerts to stay in touch with clients. Whether they prefer automated emails, push notifications, text messages, or phone calls, the system can handle it.

Here are some examples of valuable communications:

• Alert owners when a pet’s lab results are ready
• Alert owners when a vaccination or appointment is upcoming
• Follow-up on a pet’s health after an appointment or procedure
• Remind owners to pick up recurring prescriptions

When you help owners care for their pets better, you’re providing an invaluable service. This makes a big difference in their lives, and clients won’t forget what you’ve done for them!

Scheduling Appointments

Trying to get a slot in someone’s busy schedule is a challenge these days. For clients, they may need to take time off work, arrange childcare, figure out transportation, and more.

For medical personnel, it’s important to ensure that you schedule appointments when the appropriate staff members are available. These days, many pet clinics are swamped.

That means appointments will often have to be scheduled based on urgency level. When you have appointments inputted into a cloud management software, you can see all conflicts at a glance.

This prevents you from scheduling appointments and having to cancel, reschedule, double-book, or rearrange. With so many conflicting demands—appointments, meetings, events, vacations, and urgent procedures—this makes things a lot easier for your team.

Cloud vet management software can provide a holistic view of potential scheduling conflicts with the following details:

• Requested physician and their availability
• Necessary procedure prerequisites, such as consultations
• Patient status
• How urgent the procedure is
• And more

This type of information can be a lifesaver, especially if you’re trying to gauge capacity for pets who need urgent care.

Invoicing

Some veterinary practices are guilty of underbilling. Are you charging for time, labor, prescriptions used, and so forth? It can be tempting to underbill. In many cases, some practices just don’t list everything on the invoice.

This can lead to patients being undercharged. This is an issue for the clinic’s revenue, but can also lead to disappointed patients. When you inevitably realize that your clinic has been undercharging, you will be forced to jack up prices to compensate for it.

Here’s how it works. You can input all your products and services into the cloud management system. Then, when it’s time to create an invoice, treat it like online shopping.

You can add products and services to the invoice easily. Then, you can send it out and await payment. This allows you to support multiple payment methods, which is important in today’s age with options like PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, and more.

This approach also lets a vet clinic track whether an invoice is paid or not. Maybe you need to do the opposite and credit someone’s account—you can do that too!

Inventory Tracking

In veterinary practice management, accurate inventory is crucial. Running out of tools, lifesaving prescriptions, or necessary hygienic items can have fatal consequences.

However, staying on track of inventory used to be a full-time job. It required someone with strict attention to detail, excellent organizational skills, and the ability to manage minutiae. These days, cloud vet management software can mostly do it for you.

One of the benefits of cloud software is that it can track and establish patterns. How fast does your vet clinic usually go through certain drugs? How long does a shipment typically take?

Once patterns are established, the software can make recommendations and prompt you to place orders. The software also allows you to achieve transparency and promote accountability, which is especially crucial with prescription drugs.

When you automate these workflows, you can often set up recurring orders. If that doesn’t work for you, automate alerts so that you’re always notified when it’s almost time to order again.

Veterinary Practice Management Software

Veterinary practice management software is a critical investment when it comes to running the best vet practice you can. That’s why we offer cloud software for vet practices that is secure, user-friendly, and scalable. This software is time-tested, easy to integrate, and can be a lifesaver for busy practices.

If you’re interested in transitioning to cloud management software with DaySmart Vet today, contact us! We’re happy to help.