Zone Visits?

Re: Zone Visits?

Colin Thomson — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 22:40:15 GMT

[quote user="Richard Williams"]Clients will be gained from nearby practices initially but the practices will follow suit in time and the tide will turn back again. End result is lower margins for all practices in your area[/quote]

But there are real efficiency advantages to be gained if one vet can do a concentrated number of cases in a small area in a way that suits the practice . Don't discount that. We will sometimes have a single vet seeing high teens of clients in a day. (which is nothing for SA vets, I know but very high number for ambulatory LA in our experience).

But you're right you need strong rules, and the infrastructure and organisation to stick to them if clients aren't going abuse the offer.

Colin

Re: Zone Visits?

Richard Williams — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 15:16:37 GMT

The visit fee has rightly been identified as our most unpopular fee in Equine practice, and some have decided to exploit this to their advantage by starting the process of zone visits. Clients will be gained from nearby practices initially but the practices will follow suit in time and the tide will turn back again. End result is lower margins for all practices in your area. Our experience has also shown that rules need to be applied right from the beginning and staff training must be first class. Clients will always try to stretch the limits and your receptionists will have difficulty , " Oh just give me a ring when they are on their way" rarely falls into the zone visit scheme protocols but is often requested and difficult to refuse. Don't do it unless you have to is my position

Re: Zone Visits?

Kate Richardson — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 12:52:04 GMT

First practice I worked in did zone visits and it worked very well. This was back in 1997. I assume they still do them. It was a large mixed practice and at that time had 2 full time equine vets and one doing 50-75% equine work. Now they have 4 full time equine vets. Zone visits were all for routine and non urgent problems and usually 1 vet each day did the zone vists. The zone days were usually busy and you got a lot more done on those days. Clients really appreciated it. We used to give an estimate of time and it wasn't often you were far off it. Occasionally if an emergency came up in the zone you might get diverted to that call if one of the other vets wasn't available

Feel free to message me and I can give you the name of the practice if you would like to try to speak to someone there about them.

Re: Zone Visits?

Neil Wheadon — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 23:55:38 GMT

I locummed in a small SA/equine practice that used zoning

Initially worked well, then

1) Issues of 'while you are here'

2) People getting cranky that they couldn't have a vet on the free visit day

3) Putting of cases that should have been seen earlier to the 'free visit' day

4) The receptionist trying to decide which small holding was in which free day. In the end I went through the map with a fine tooth comb writing every settlement on a spreadsheet with North, South, East and West against it to help her out.

Of the 2 equine vets, one had serious misgivings about it.

Neil

Re: Zone Visits?

Colin Thomson — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 22:51:35 GMT

We have a largish equine side of the practice (6-7 FTE equine vets). We do zone visits, and have done them for about 8 years. ( I can't really remember). We were one of the first to do them, I think. We're based on the edge of the Leeds/Bradford conurbation. Its has certainly worked for us. They've brought in lots of extra clients. They can really be a more efficient way of getting through a lot of work. But you need strong rules - about what can be done on the Zone, when they can be booked, clients can't choose vet - etc, etc etc.

PM me and I'll get our practice manager to go through the pros and cons with you if you like.

Colin

Re: Zone Visits?

Joyce Whitehead — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 22:20:24 GMT

We are an equine/sa practice and don't do zone days. We haven't actually been asked for them, but I think that for a small practice (4 of us, and I'm totally small animal) it would be hard to have a decent scheme for one vet to be in one area. Add to that the clients who only want one particular vet, and the emergency in hue zone area that slows things down and I think you might have trouble. I also agree that if you start discounting visit fees it feels like a backward step! We do some free yard visits to larger livery yards though.

Re: Zone Visits?

Michael Woodhouse — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 20:59:44 GMT

How big is your area and what kind of car do you drive? Ever (dare) work out cost per mile?

I can see the advantages being twofold - you waste less diesel driving backwards and forwards and your times is spent more efficiently - you can do more chargeable work in a given day.

Visits cost you twice because you are burning fuel and sat on your bottom not really earning. If you can spend a day in an area then you can work very much more efficiently.

My gut feeling would be to only allow 1 vet to be booked up on the day. Leave the other floating to deal with urgent calls or if the zone vet falls behind. Get people to book the zone visits early and once the day is 'full' they can chose next week or have the other vet at full price.

Some days it feels like I spend more time driving to calls than doing proper work. I can see it making a real difference if you are covering a large area. 20 mins each way from base and no need.

(we offer half visit fees for pre-booked routine work)

Re: Zone Visits?

Wren — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 19:33:13 GMT

[quote user="Gillian Mostyn"]

That's the most crucial point! If these owners would have called you out anyway, and you don't increase your client base (always assume worst case scenario when costing), will the improved efficiency save enough time (money) to offset the discount. Interesting one......

[/quote]

Currently, no. It would be dependent on all those potential clients who say that they'd use us if only we did zone days... Hmmm!

Re: Zone Visits?

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 18:41:58 GMT

[quote user="Gillian Mostyn"] If these owners would have called you out anyway, and you don't increase your client base (always assume worst case scenario when costing), will the improved efficiency save enough time (money) to offset the discount. [/quote] Sorry to hijack the thread but this brings to mind my dilemma in considering whether or not I should start a payment plan a couple of years from retirement/ selling my soul to the corporate devil and continuing to work for them. One argument is that my income will fall in the initial period and I will have less to retire on/practice value will be less OR purchaser will see guaranteed income for the future with bonded clients and this will increase the value of practice. Tricky conundrum.

Re: Zone Visits?

Gillian Mostyn — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 18:32:05 GMT

[quote user="Wren"]I think I'm just averse to reducing visit fees at all unless someone can tell me that it definitely brings in new custom.[/quote]

Re: Zone Visits?

Virginia Campbell — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 18:00:48 GMT

Sorry about not answering your OP as I'm not in equine practice, but a drawback that sprang to mind was "beware the extras". You know the way when farmers have you out TB testing, b/c the visit is free certain individuals will have "saved up" some while-you're-heres without booking them in. As in, a couple of castrate/dehorns, half a dozen PDs, etc. So if the horse owners are booking in a couple of flu vaxes on a zone day, make sure your receptionists are well trained to ask if there's anything else at all that needs done, lest you had counted on a 15min visit only to be asked to have a look at the old pony's teeth too, except he's in the bottom field, and the flighty yearling's old wire injury, stand out of sight, hang on it'll only take me a minute to get a halter on him blah blah blah.

Re: Zone Visits?

Wren — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 17:44:28 GMT

Yes, you quite often get three or four horses to see on a yard at once (then they split the call-out between them) but your next call can be to another yard 40mins away, then the next morning you go to the neighbour of the first yard...

This way you'd (ideally) spend a whole day working within, say, a 5-10 mile radius and it also works well for the people who keep their horses at home and otherwise bear the brunt of call-out fees as they have no-one to share with. I think I'm just averse to reducing visit fees at all unless someone can tell me that it definitely brings in new custom.

Re: Zone Visits?

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 17:21:25 GMT

I thought that was something a lot of owners with horses in livery stables/yards did anyway.

Re: Zone Visits?

Wren — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 17:12:02 GMT

I possibly should have explained...

It's a scheme popular with equine vets (or more probably their clients) where visits in certain areas are cheap or free on certain days. This website show it quite well:

http://www.fellowesfarm.com/FreeVisitScheme1514.html

Generally there are restrictions ie. all visits are prebooked (min 24 hours ahead) and are for fairly routine work only and generally the client gets allocated a time or an approximate time-band (say between 1 and 4pm) rather than them choosing for their convenience. The advantage for the vet is that they spend the day visiting yards in a discrete geographical area and can plan a logical and efficient route. The advantage for the client is that it's cheap!

Re: Zone Visits?

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 16:49:36 GMT

[quote user="Wren"]Any equine vets out there? Or management types?[/quote] Not me but I would welcome enlightenment on what a zone day is!