Preventive Care: The Secret to Increasing Practice Revenue
Spreadsheets and benchmarks don’t excite most veterinary professionals. However, practice profitability is crucial for many aspects of business, including delivering exceptional patient care and creating a positive work environment for your team.
Growing practice revenue doesn’t always mean big changes or overhauls. Instead, small, strategic shifts in practice management and a deeper focus on the foundations of veterinary medicine can make all the difference. Improving compliance with preventive care recommendations can lead to a sustained revenue boost, better pet health, and a booked schedule year-round.
Preventive veterinary care revenue streams
Preventive care is the quiet engine behind strong, healthy practices. A focus on services all pets need, including wellness exams, vaccinations, and dentistry, creates steady and reliable revenue streams.
Preventive services support better healthcare outcomes for pets and help pet owners stay ahead of costly conditions. Well visits are also an excellent opportunity to strengthen relationships between clients and veterinarians, provide education, build trust, and improve long-term loyalty.
Expanding preventive care options—and making them easy for clients to understand—can increase revenue growth while reinforcing your veterinary practice's reputation as a partner in lifelong animal health.
Optimizing the preventive veterinary care experience
Retaining current clients is as important as bringing in new ones. While promotions are especially effective for getting preventive care clients in the door, focusing on the client experience keeps them coming back.
Every touchpoint in the experience is an opportunity to shine by going above and beyond. Make it easy to book appointments using online scheduling, send automated pre-visit instructions via email or cloud-based PIMS, provide personalized service during appointments, use incentives and pet wellness plans to reduce costs, and follow up after visits to provide top-notch service.
Driving preventive care growth online
Pet owners research veterinary hospitals online like they would any other service provider. Maintaining an online presence helps potential clients find you and allows existing clients to connect with the team on a deeper level, improving retention.
Sharing social media posts about the importance of preventive care and pet care tips helps position your veterinary clinic as a trusted source for animal health information. It also enhances your visibility in local searches, so clients looking for preventive care and other veterinary services can find you.
Expand preventive veterinary care services
Adding or expanding veterinary services that naturally complement your existing offerings can create additional revenue streams. Preventive and routine care is a great place to start adding advanced services, and it provides your team members with an opportunity to expand their knowledge and skills through additional training.
Examples of extra services include ultrasound exams for breeds at risk of heart disease, nutritional consultations, obesity programs, and behavioral consultations. Listening to your clients and identifying unmet needs helps you tailor services that enhance patient care and your practice's profit margin. Survey your clients to find out what services they would like your clinic to offer, or look for unmet niches in your region.
Invest in team success
No growth strategy will succeed if your team is too overwhelmed to properly implement it. Veterinary hospital team workloads and well-being impact the bottom line. Investing in training, providing support, and building a positive work environment can ensure team members have the bandwidth necessary to facilitate sustained growth.
Train team members to present consistent pet wellness recommendations, educate clients about the importance of routine care, explain estimates and the value of each service, and deliver outstanding care during routine appointments. For those interested in further education, consider investing in advanced programs that enhance your clinic’s offerings.
Smart preventive veterinary care pricing
Pricing has an undeniable impact on practice revenue, but strategy isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Clinics can improve accessibility to basic care by pricing wellness services reasonably and charging higher, value-based prices for more skilled and advanced care services.
Wellness plans are another way to improve affordability for preventive care and attract new clients. You can manage wellness plans directly from your cloud-based veterinary practice management software, using third-party integrations, so plans simplify payment rather than complicating it.
Preventive veterinary care can become a cornerstone of your clinic’s profits and provide new revenue streams, such as monthly wellness plan payments or extended well care services like nutritional consults and behavioral treatments. Smart, strategic changes can support better pet healthcare and a healthier bottom line.
