Veterinarian salaries and debts April 26, 2009
Posted by thedolittlevet in Economics.Tags: bonus, commission, costs, debt, salary, university, vet, veterinarian, veterinary, wage
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Following on from the last post. I’ve decided to post an article on veterinarian’s salaries. A lot of people often naturally assume that vets earn excellent salaries. I suppose this is understandable when a client sees the cost of a 10-15 minute consultation or the price of an expensive surgery. For farmers or large animal clients, they will often see the vets drive relatively new, big and expensive cars (which are necessary for the amount of driving and abuse the cars take!).
Unfortunately, clients don’t factor in how expensive drugs (and their transport costs), medical and surgical equipment, rent for the premises and all the salaries (vets, nurses, receptionists and others) can be. The actual profit margins for veterinary clinics aren’t anywhere near as high as people assume.
It has been reported that average educational loan debt of a graduating veterinary student in the US, is greater than a staggering $100,000 (http://is.gd/uCDU). In the UK, the actual figure is probably lower (although rapidly rising), considering students can do a veterinary degree immediately (without needing to do another one first) and due to the fact that part of the university education is funded by the government.
Often during the university holidays, it is compulsory for veterinary students to work (normally for free) on farms, at stables and in veterinary clinics, to gain experience of working and handling animals. This is a valuable part of our training but unfortunately, it often denies us the opportunity to get paid work over our holidays.
The veterinary course is also very intensive – normally 5 full study days a week, in additional to extra personal studying in the evenings and over the weekends. Once again, a part-time job can be hard to cope with, on top of the intense veterinary course. So for these reasons, often vets can end up with huge debts once they qualify with very little opportunity to pay some of it off before graduating.
So obviously, once we qualify, everything is great because we earn huge salaries and can pay off the debt very quickly. WRONG. The actual veterinary salary is lower than those earned by many other professionals. We on average earn about 31,000 pounds/yr in the UK and $80,000/yr in the US. On average, we earn less than dentists, accountants, scientists, engineers, secondary school teachers, surveyors, doctors amongst others (http://is.gd/uCDy).
Vets can be paid by a variety of means. In the UK, a vet may just simply receive a fixed salary or alternatively, a lower salary but with free accommodation and/or a car. On top of this, some practices pay a commission-based wage. This normally means a fixed salary, in addition to a bonus related to either individual or the whole practice’s productivity.
There are good and bad aspects to a commission-based salary. The benefits of a bonus system, are that it provides great motivation for vets to generate work (as opposed to being lazy), provide a better service and to stimulate vets to take an interest in the financial success of the practice. Obviously, both vets and the practice partners can be rewarded handsomely by such a system.
On a more negative note, an individual bonus system can create greed and selfishness. Vets may push expensive tests and treatments; not for the interest of the animal, but to boost their own bonuses. In addition to this, practice vets may stop working as a team but more as competitors. Vets may prefer to do more vaccines and desexing operations (which are quick, easy and profitable) than spend time on a complicated case or on hospital in-patients, which can be time-consuming and not generate as much income. Also experienced vets may be more reluctant to supervise younger vets during surgeries unless the work is recorded under their name.
Obviously, the ideal is a balance. My personal experience when I first qualified involved emergency calls after hours. I never received any percentage of the money I generated. We would often work a full day and then be “on call” at night and then have a full workload the following day. Naturally, I would always offer the option to see a patient at any time but if I felt it wasn’t a true emergency, I would try to convince the owner to wait till the following day by telling them how much cheaper it would be during the day.
In hindsight, if I had been offered some bonus for seeing a client during the night, I may have actually had an incentive to do more “non-emergency” consultations, if that is what the owners desired. Personally, I feel that would have been a win-win situation for everyone. Both myself and the clinic would have earned extra money and the owner would have been able to have their pet seen whenever they desired. My experience tells me that people can work unusual hours and sometimes 3am is the only time when they can get to visit a vet.
Fortunately, nowadays, we have a 24 hour clinic and so I no longer am required to be on call out of hours. I personally get paid a practice (as opposed to individual) bonus which seems to work quite well. We all work together as a team, with no-one being lazy or pushing un-necessary treatments and tests. I personally will give recommendations that I would happily use on my own pet. I feel in the long run, a good and honest service will pay great dividends as opposed to aiming for short term gains. I hate when someone tries to rip me off and so I refuse to treat others that way.
I was lucky when I went to university as I didn’t need to pay tuition fees. I also managed to earn good money from holiday and Saturday jobs. In addition to this, I had very supportive parents who paid for my accommodation and food costs. I now do a job that I throughly enjoy and although, I could earn far more in another job, I earn more than enough to allow me to have a comfortable life.
Controversy over exposing “rip off” vets April 25, 2009
Posted by thedolittlevet in Economics.Tags: con, controversy, costs, marc abraham, money grabbing, rip off, tonight, vets
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Last month, a TV programme was broadcasted in the UK about veterinary treatment. I finally got to watch this programme, “Tonight”, on ITV catchup (online), which caused huge controversy within the veterinary profession.
The programme featured the presenters taking 3 healthy pets (a dog, cat and rabbit) separately to several different clinics. Each animal was presented to the clinics simply with the owner complaining that the animal wasn’t eating. Obviously, the vets in charge of the cases offered different treatment and diagnostic options.
The advice given varied from vet to vet. This included prescribing different medicines, recommending further work up e.g. blood tests , doing nothing at all/monitoring and one vet even advised for the rabbit to undergo a dental procedure (which was deemed un-necessary by the other vets).
The presenters then brought the pets to the “television vet” Marc Abraham (who had the benefit of knowing the pets were healthy), who then proceeded to examine the animals and inform viewers that no treatment was necessary in any of the cases.
The programme’s conclusion was that the veterinarians were intentionally opting for treatment/diagnostics with the purpose of making money. The programme also implied that it was wrong for a consultation fee to be charged for examining a healthy pet that required no treatment.
This programme created the impression that veterinarians were using their professional status to take advantage of owners, that knew no better, simply to make money under false pretences. Obviously, this caused an outcry in the UK amongst vets.
I think several points that the programme illustrated are worthy of further discussion. Firstly, one of the most important parts of the diagnostic work-up, is the history that the owner provides. Obviously, as vets, we place a lot of trust in what owners tell us. If an owner is sufficiently worried that their pet is inappetant, then it would be wrong of us not to take the complaint seriously.
Often, we may have a very good idea of what could be causing the problem just from the history. For example, an obese pet drinking a lot of water, eating a lot and still losing weight would be suggestive of diabetes.
Obviously, during a consultation, the pet is examined and if no illness is found, then several options are left to the vet:
1) Ask them to adopt a conservative approach and wait to see if any other signs develop which will help to isolate the cause of the problem.
2) Offer the owner the option of further diagnostic tests such as a blood test to check for any internal problems, which may not be detected from a physical examination.
3) Offer some form of mild treatment, which may help to increase the appetite such as a specific food or appetite stimulant (e.g.vitamin B).
4) Either not believe the owner’s information and keep the pet in the hospital and observe the appetite (may end up with false inappetance due to stress) or dismiss the owner and tell them that there is no obvious problem.
There is also the possibility of the vet finding something on clinical examination that may actually be unrelated to the inappetance but further investigation/treatment is recommended.
Of the 4 options above, I believe that any of the first 3 options is acceptable. The 4th option however, is the one most likely to lead to problems. The owner may end up going to another vet or worse still, the animal deteriorates rapidly and the owner complains that the pet wasn’t investigated properly. Inappetance is such a vague symptom that a number of conditions (including some serious ones) can be responsible.
I personally feel the best way of dealing with a case like this is to present your opinion and then give the owner the options to choose from. If they are sufficiently concerned and want to spend money on a blood test, then I most definitely am not going to dissuade them, in case something more serious is going on and then I have left myself open to litigation.
I always try to give a set of options with a different range of prices and discuss the pros and cons of each. I will also tell them what I would do for my own pet (as a strong recommendation) BUT I will then leave the owner to make the final decision.
A common example of this is with a pre-anaesthetic blood test. These tests help to check the functions of the internal organs before a general anaesthetic. Often animals can appear very healthy on physical examination and from the owner’s history. On paper, it would appear, that a blood test isn’t really necessary as the pet is “clinically healthy”. However, I can personally testify that there are times (in these “healthy pets”), when a disease such as leukaemia (cancer of the white cells) or a liver/kidney disorder is diagnosed.
This however does not mean that I recommend a blood test before every anaesthetic. Normally, I tell the owner the animal appears healthy and I would be surprised if the blood test comes back abnormal, but once again, I leave the decision to them.
The final point I would like to bring up is the charging of a consultation. Vets by nature are caring professionals and rarely value their own time. I know myself that I often feel guilty when a pet requires an expensive drug or procedure. A lot of vets and clinics regularly do charity/wildlife work.
In addition to this, I don’t know any vets that charge for giving advice on the phone (unlike lawyers!) or in the reception area. Surely, it is reasonable to charge a fee for our professional opinion and service during a consultation. Do you get charged for a perfectly good house to be surveyed, an MOT for your car or by the dentist for a checkup?
Although, naturally there will be unscrupulous greedy individuals out there, who are more interested in making money than the welfare of animals; it is wrong to taint all vets (the majority who are excellent) with the same brush!
