Isabelle Blaser  - Vet Receptionists

On the State of the Veterinary Field: "I think it's just a nationwide thing. That vet hospitals are understaffed and overworked and they always need an extra set of hands."

Pets are like family to a great majority of our population.  As living creatures, these pets need help.  Sometimes just a checkup, and sometimes something deeper, such as surgery.  Regardless of what they need, they are the animals we care about and so we want them to be taken care of.

The world of veterinary medicine is a challenging one.  The volume of pets is increasing, the volume of veterinarians and technicians is decreasing.  The workload is simply too much for most people to bear for anything considered long term.

But does it have to be this way?

Isabelle Blaser is the incredible manager at Vet Receptionists, a company designed to lift much of the burden found in most veterinary clinics, by taking calls and helping reduce the workload of the overworked staff.  By doing this, Isabelle and her crew at Vet Receptionists are able to help their client's employees keep doing all they need to do, keep them sane and keep them happily employed.

In this episode Isabelle shares the problems facing most veterinary clinics and the solutions that can turn a struggling practice into a place of happiness.  Though most veterinary clinics may not be struggling financially, mentally and culturally they are often a house of cards.  Many times without the doctors or clinic owners even knowing of the issues or demands being made on their team.

Listen as Isabelle explains the need for improved customer service to allow your clients to be treated better, as well as your employees.

Enjoy!

Visit Isabelle at: https://vetreceptionists.com/

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vetreceptionists/

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Supporting Overworked Vet Hospitals

04:20 Staffing Shortages and Owner Misunderstandings

08:15 Vets Avoiding Independent Practice

09:49 Veterinary Staff Experience Insights

13:12 Teamwork in Hospitals Explained

16:57 Veterinary Medicine: Broad, Demanding Expertise

19:31 Healing Through Puppy Care

23:08 "Clinic Growth and Staffing Strain"

28:08 General Practice Veterinary Hospital Size

29:58 Dominance of Market Software Leaders

34:05 "Veterinary Hiring Knowledge Test"

Podcast Transcription:

James Kademan [00:00:00]:

What is Vet Receptionists?

Isabelle Blaser [00:00:01]:

Vet Receptionists is a remote reception service for veterinary hospitals.

James Kademan [00:00:06]:

Nice.

Isabelle Blaser [00:00:07]:

In short, that's.

James Kademan [00:00:08]:

That's cool. That's cool. Why is that important?

Isabelle Blaser [00:00:11]:

It's important because I'm sure you've been to a veterinary hospital sometime recently. The staff is more than you'd like to admit. I think it's just a nationwide thing that vet hospitals are understaffed and overworked and they always need an extra set of hands. That way they can take care of the patients that are in the hospital.

Isabelle Blaser [00:00:29]:

So that's where we come in.

James Kademan [00:00:34]:

You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link [email protected] we are locally underwritten by the banks of Sun, Bank of Sun Prairie. Woof. Calls on Call, Extraordinary Answering Service as well as the Bold Business Book. And today we're welcoming, slash preparing to learn from Isabelle Blaser, at Vet Receptionists. So, Isabelle, how is it going today?

Isabelle Blaser [00:01:04]:

It is going just fabulous. How about yourself?

James Kademan [00:01:07]:

Sweet. It's going well. I'm excited. We're talking about veterinary receptionists. Let's just start there. What is Vet Receptionists?

Isabelle Blaser [00:01:14]:

Vet Receptionists is a remote reception service for veterinary hospitals.

James Kademan [00:01:20]:

Nice. In short, that's cool. That's cool. Why is that important?

Isabelle Blaser [00:01:26]:

It's important because I'm sure you've been to a veterinary hospital sometime recently. The staff is more than. More than you'd like to admit. I think it's just a nationwide thing that vet hospitals are understaffed and overworked and they always need an extra set of hands. That way they can take care of the patients that are in the hospital. So that's where we come in. It's really important just to have a backup and just, you know, a fail safe of someone else that can handle the phone calls, the text messages, the emails that come in so that the staff can handle the critical patients that are in front of them.

James Kademan [00:02:03]:

And is this a problem that's been going on for years, forever, or is this a fairly new issue?

Isabelle Blaser [00:02:09]:

I think it's been a problem that's been going on for a while, but it's becoming more prevalent because more people are having pets. The population is getting a little bit bigger and people are obviously more outspoken about issues that they may have in their workplace and especially in veterinary medicine, you know, that's, it's just hard to keep staff. So this is a great way to make sure that everybody's taken care of.

James Kademan [00:02:34]:

So tell me about keeping staff in the veterinary medicine world. Because I've been on the side of the counter where I pay, but not on the side of the counter where I have to take the pets in and deal with the angry customers and all that kind of stuff. I've certainly been on this side of the counter dealing with angry customers in other realms. It just, it seems interesting to me because you have someone's pet who some people like. I think of my dad, to him, a pet is an animal. He grew up on a farm. And an animal can be replaced.

Isabelle Blaser [00:03:05]:

Yep.

James Kademan [00:03:05]:

They're just like, oh, it's like a hot dog that got moldy. If your animal's sick, just get rid of it. And I used to be that way until I got my first animal. I got a dog. And now that dog I love more than most other people in my life. So I'm like, that's a different game. Right. So I guess I say that to say you're not just ordering popcorn or a beer or something like that.

James Kademan [00:03:24]:

Like you're actually dealing with this living, breathing member of a family, which means that emotion can get involved. So tell me a little story about what it's like to work on that side of the counter.

Isabelle Blaser [00:03:34]:

Yeah, I mean, I think you hit a lot of good points. And I think one all encompassing thing is I don't think people realize that whatever they can do in a human hospital, like imagine that that is also being done for animals. So like the emergency room realm is real. And I think that's where most of the short staffing and burnout comes from. Because like when you are imagining a pet, you're probably thinking, okay, yeah, vaccines, well, visit, maybe a spay and neuter. Right. But it really comes down to the emergency side and the critical care side. So like, if your pet is having an active emergency and you come in there, whatever you would imagine that you would get in a human hospital, that's what's also being done for the animal side.

Isabelle Blaser [00:04:20]:

And I think there's just like a lack of knowledge on the owner's side, firstly, that maybe they don't understand everything that's going on. So when they get upset and you have an angry owner and you're getting yelled at, you just want to like, say, like, I wish you could understand what I'm doing. And just that, you know, after a long period of time leads to people saying, okay, well I'm not doing this anymore. Maybe I don't get paid enough money, I don't have a good work life balance Whatever, it just accumulates over time and that ultimately leads to the staffing shortages. Another thing is, you know, just the whole money side of it, which I hate to get into. But people, yeah, it's important. Owners, obviously, they love their pets. Some things are expensive.

Isabelle Blaser [00:05:15]:

If you take your pet to an emergency hospital, they got hit by a car and they need to be in the ICU for a week, they might tell you it's going to be eight to ten grand just to keep them alive. And people, owners sometimes can come across saying, like, you just care about the money. Right. We don't, we don't care about the money. We're not. I'm not getting that 8 to 10 grand, like I promise you.

James Kademan [00:05:37]:

Yeah, Just.

Isabelle Blaser [00:05:38]:

Yeah. Directly in my bank account. No, I might see it a very small fraction of that. So I think it's just that there's a side of veterinary professionals and there's a side of owners and we don't always mesh a hundred percent because they don't see our side. And maybe we don't understand their side completely either. And there's just, you know, hostility and things like that sometimes. And I just think that accumulates over time and leads to people wanting to leave the veterinary field because they don't get the same respect as a human doctor would.

James Kademan [00:06:15]:

Oh, interesting that. You know, it's funny, I have noticed that as well with the veterinary side. Talking to my vet, who he's a male and I didn't know that. I'm learning the veterinary field is female.

Isabelle Blaser [00:06:29]:

Yeah.

James Kademan [00:06:30]:

I had no idea because my one vet, the guy that I see is a dude. So my, the awareness that I had was this one guy. So therefore a lot of vets are guys. I don't know. I'm wrong.

Isabelle Blaser [00:06:43]:

You're very wrong. Yeah, very wrong.

James Kademan [00:06:45]:

Oh my gosh. But it's interesting because talking to him, he was talking about expanding his practice and the cost of build out. He's in an older building.