Discounts for charities

Re: Discounts for charities

Nicola Lawlor — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 14:40:48 GMT

As per Suzanne above - I worked with her at that clinic and found the CP a brilliant charity to work with, clinically some rewarding work as they don't immediately give up on cases but take advice and listen, and make sensible decisions based upon that advice. As Suzanne said too, many new clients came our way due to that work too and this helped increase turnover and profits. I also was only an assistant and I know we were very careful to log invoicing to individual patients so it could be traced and checked, but I also believe they were very good at settling accounts with the clinic without much need for questioning. I would say it is a great thing to do for well organised charity.

Re: Discounts for charities

Nicola Lawlor — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 14:40:47 GMT

Re: Discounts for charities

patrick murphy — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 13:26:56 GMT

I was just told yesterday that the lady who hands out the vouchers won't let them come to me as she has a good established relationship with the existing practices, despite my abject campaigning for early neutering and doing some stuff for other local charities. so I had a client who had to see me for illness, travel miles for second vacc, and then go to a third for neutering? I did not think that I was going to get rich, but it might of helped the lady with her petrol bill, let alone the poor cat travelling the distances. never mind eh?

Re: Discounts for charities

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 10:53:04 GMT

I do a lot of work for CP it can be over£1000 a month but been a lot less recently. I give 30-50% off normal surgery and consultation fees and mark up poms by50% rather than the usual100%.They do have their vaccines and flea/worm products but I charge an injection or dispensing fee. Like Wynne I see it as an obligation almost to help charities but I get little call from others. I also help rspca local branch but not hq. I don't get a huge amount of spin off work but it is work I probably wouldn't have got anyway so as long as it doesn't interfere with other full fee paying work its worthwhile.

Re: Discounts for charities

Suzanne Kelly — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 02:07:36 GMT

If you work with a good charity ( unfortunately so many of them are crackpots) you will reap the rewards as they will recommend you as the vet for all the pets that they rehome. It's win-win. You're doing your bit for charity by giving a discount, you are helping the animals, but ultimately you're increasing your client numbers which is all good. Just choose wisely to avoid nutters. I worked for a practice in the UK that did a lot of CP work and found it immensely rewarding. Hard work but lots of fun if you like cats and we got loads of very good clients to choose us as their vets because of it. I can't remember what discount we gave though. As mentioned previously the CP supply all their own medicines including vaccines. We used to visit the centre for 2 hours twice a week and we charged an hourly rate, that included physical exams, blood tests, cystos, microchipping, vaccinating etc. We did neutering and any other ops at the surgery. I was an assistant so I can't quote figures, but the work did increase the practice profits. It made the staff happy too because we all loved cats. All good, go for it

Re: Discounts for charities

Bob Russell — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 13:45:35 GMT

Cat Protection are pretty good so happy to discount. Dogs Trust zilch because they have cut corners with medication etc so I cannot discount.

I will do stuff for reduced profit but not for free!

I have given up with Hearing Dogs because they take forever to pay the bill!

Re: Discounts for charities

Laurence Webb — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 11:14:55 GMT

Thanks for the suggestions. Many interesting ideas and variation in approach. I shall decide how to play it.

Laurence

Re: Discounts for charities

Hannah Wynne Richards — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 09:16:38 GMT

I give massive discounts to bona fide charities - and consider I have a moral duty to do so. Make sure you charge ordinary clients appropriately though there's far more of those who whinge - and if you've told them to take out insurence, it's their fault, not yours if they're too dim-witted to do as they're told!

Wynne

Re: Discounts for charities

Braden Collins — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 04:23:20 GMT

We include charity work done as part of our advertising budget.

Depending on how busy you are you may be able to absorb some of the work - after all, when we look at the cost of a procedure we look at the fixed and variable costs. If you can absorb the work without affecting your underlying fixed costs it may not cost you much to do the work at a fair discount.

If you do the work for charities, make sure the good will comes back to you. This is why you can account for some of it in your advertising budget. Hammer it on your website and facebook page, make sure there are links to your clinic on the charities website, make sure all certificates and information are nicely packaged in a folder branded with your logo and details. In short, make sure it works for your clinic rather than settling for the "feel good" payback.

Also make sure the charity is well organised. We had to dump a charity here because they were so disorganised it was creating several hours each week of work for our nurses chasing up records, approvals, vouchers and the works. after months of trying to resolve the problems we parted ways. We still work with other charities such as "Roo Rescue", and you can bet any time we see one of their kangaroos we put it straight on Facebook and it gets a lot of likes.

Re: Discounts for charities

Rob Loxley — Sun, 31 Aug 2014 12:10:27 GMT

We do work for the local CP branch. We do give them some fixed, discounted prices. They have their own Henry Schein wholesaler account and buy their vaccines/drugs/food themselves (delivered to us) and a Finn Pathologists account for labs, so we charge for the exam fees/blood sampling fees, neutering etc.
I guess it's a business decision whether you give a discount, but as well as just basing it on whether you want to 'donate' to the charity, is it good PR, will it bring new clients (e.g. kittens you have vaccinated and cats registering for neutering), are you 'slack' with work etc.

Re: Discounts for charities

Malcolm Ness — Sun, 31 Aug 2014 09:17:45 GMT

You are a business - charge everybody appropriately and if you want to donate to charity, choose one you and your staff like and send them money.

We do some clinical and legal work pro bono and our "Practice Charity" is Send A Cow. (www.sendacow.co.uk)

Re: Discounts for charities

Michael Woodhouse — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 23:20:19 GMT

We don't do much charity work (given our rural location) but we do take the neutering vouchers for Dog's Trust and others. We claim the voucher price and charge the owner the balance.

If I was doing volume work for charity I'd be inclined to offer monthly invoice with an increasing discount based on spend. I'm quite happy giving some of our gamekeepers 30% off kennel cough vaccine when they line me half a dozen perfectly behaved dogs up in the back of the truck.