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Financial Self-Care in Veterinary Medicine

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What sort of activities do you envision when you hear the words “self-care?”

Maybe it’s a walk in the woods or meditation? A day at the spa or a round of golf? Playing with the kids or taking a vacation. Catching up on your favorite shows?

Sure, these activities can provide relief from anxiety and stress. But one part of the self-care equation that doesn’t get mentioned often is taking care of your money. 

Why Veterinarians Need Self-Care 

First, why the need for self-care? 

This stems from feeling overwhelmed, overworked and burned out. Our busy days are crammed with a lot of competing obligations – work, family, loved ones. We tend to put ourselves last on the list because, of course, everything else takes precedence. 

This is especially true for veterinarians. This profession is full of compassionate and empathetic people who have a passion for helping those who have no voice. This constant desire to help others can naturally lead to compassion fatigue and burnout. 

Financial Stress

Try adding financial stress on top of the everyday stress we encounter in our personal and professional lives.

How many times have you looked at your credit card bill and felt your heart race a little faster? How about those student loan balances? Your retirement account? Daycare bills? Does thinking about money give you a sense of relief and security, or do you feel panicked? 

Want to go on that nice vacation or join that health club, both considered self-care activities? If you haven’t budgeted for these items, then you could find yourself feeling even more anxious every time the next credit card bill arrives.

Whether we like it or not, money plays a big part in our decisions and how we choose to live our lives. 

Financial Wellness

There is an unmistakable link between our financial wellness and general well-being. It’s not a difficult concept: feeling financially stressed directly affects well-being because so many aspects of our lives depend on financial stability. The Merck Veterinary Well-being Study clearly shows that money-related factors, like student debt and low income, are correlated with a lower well-being score.

Being financially healthy does NOT mean that you have millions in the bank. It means that you are spending within your means and you have a plan that allows you to feel confident about achieving your goals. You may be deep in student debt, but having a plan to pay them back in the most cost-efficient manner can provide incredible peace of mind. You may still be in the process of saving for home, but if you’re confident that you’re budgeting properly so that you will have that down payment ready to go in 2 years, your financial health is better than the person who buys too much house too soon and finds themselves stretched to the limit with their mortgage payments. 

Invest in Yourself

You may have thought that investing in yourself meant going deep into debt to attain your veterinary degree.

News flash: your educational debt was just the beginning. Now YOU are the asset. Your veterinary degree gave you the ticket to use your talents and resources to produce income as a veterinarian. It is now your job to not only practice veterinary medicine but to also make sure your income can provide you the life you’ve always envisioned for yourself. This will require intentionality and purpose.

You have worked so hard to get to where you are right now. Don’t blow your chance to take care of your money. Learn how to optimize your finances so that you’re making the most out of what you have, instead of working harder for the same results. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and money by making this a priority.

How to Start

Getting your financial ducks in a row isn’t difficult. It is truly an investment in yourself.

One of the first steps is to organize your finances. Understand how much you owe by listing all of your debt, including the current balances, interest rates and your monthly payments. Next, list all of your assets: how much you have in your bank accounts and your investment accounts? 

Now that you know your numbers, you can start making short and long term money goals. Examples include: fully funding your emergency fund, having a debt payoff plan, and planning for retirement. Making a cohesive plan will motivate you to use your money as a tool to achieve your money and life goals.

Learning how to take care of your money should not be a dreaded chore that falls low on your priority list. It is another form of self-care. Your ability to properly manage your own money will touch every aspect of your life. Feeling secure and confident with your finances will allow you the freedom to pursue all of those other areas of self-care that have been neglected. Make sure you include financial wellness in your self-care plan.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

Grace Kim, DVM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Grace Kim is the founder of Richer Life DVM, a blog that promotes financial wellness for veterinarians. Outside of working and spending time with her husband and 3 children, she enjoys running and traveling. 

The Missing Piece of Preventative Care

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I hate talking about money.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I can geek out over portfolio diversity and the power of compound interest. But when it comes to the clinic, I’d be happy to never say a word about money again. Most veterinary professionals I know would agree with me. Talking to clients about finances can be dicey.

There’s the problem of dealing with clients who don’t want to pay for the service we provide, or more common still, the client who can’t pay for the service their pet needs. And far too often, we run into the situation of having to make medical decisions for our patients based on finances. Economic euthanasia is one of the worst parts of the job.

Let’s face it, vet med would be much easier if we took the money out of it. But until I catch up to Mark Zuckerberg or Warren Buffet in the net worth category and can finance thousands of no-cost veterinary clinics all over the country, money will continue to be an issue in veterinary medicine.

And here’s the problem — if we stick our heads in the sand and try to pretend our jobs are just about the medicine while ignoring the money factor, we’re setting ourselves and our clients up for failure. And I don’t know about you, but I hate failure; especially when it’s my patients I’m failing.

Now, you might say that it’s not your job to figure out how your clients are going to pay for their pet’s health care. And you may believe, understandably so, that it’s the clients’ job to do their research and make a plan for emergency situations. And that’s true.

But you know what our job is? It’s to educate pet owners on how to take care of their pets. And like it or not, taking care of pets requires big bucks. So why aren’t more of us talking about money preventatively? Just like we don’t want to wait until a pet has been diagnosed with heartworm to talk about heartworm, we shouldn’t wait until a client is in the ER facing a $5000 estimate, to talk about the cost of veterinary care.

Do you know what the average yearly cost to own a pet is? Yeah, me either. I tried to find it for the sake of this article but to no avail. There are estimates for the average cost of routine preventative care. And estimates for the average cost of a single emergency. And those are good starts. But most of us never even breach those numbers with our clients until it’s time for them to pay up. And it doesn’t even begin to cover the cost of dental care, non-emergent acute health issues like UTIs, or chronic conditions like atopy.

And yes, I know it’s hardly a simple matter of giving clients a number. Even if we figure out the “average” it doesn’t mean we have the slightest idea what a lifetime, or even just the next year, of veterinary care is going to cost for an individual pet. An Irish Wolfhound’s medication is going to cost a lot more than a Yorkie’s. A pet in New York City is going to have vet bills that far exceed those of a pet living in rural Alabama. And some clients are going to opt for treatment well above and beyond what the “average” pet owner would consider.

But how can we expect our clients to budget properly for their pet’s care if we don’t even give them an idea of what that budget needs to be? If we continue to hoard information on the cost of care in fear of over or underestimating, then clients are going to continue to be unprepared when the time comes to pony up the money for their vet visit. Pair that with the emotional upheaval of experiencing an emergency with their pet, and it’s no wonder clients lash out. I’m not condoning the abusive, bullying tactics of some pet owners, but let’s face it, during times of emotional stress and fear, people can get a little crazy. And we have the power to prevent that —at least some of the time — by better preparing our clients for the financial reality of pet ownership. Just think how many lop-sided news features could have been avoided if the family in the story had just known ahead of time that emergency clinics don’t offer payment plans?

So, the next time a client comes in with a new puppy or kitten, we need to do more than just educate them on vaccines and parasite prevention. We should do more, even, than suggest pet insurance (though that’s a step in the right direction).  The preventative care talk we have at those new patient and client visits needs to include a candid conversation about the financial impact of pet ownership. We owe it to our clients, our patients, and ourselves to make money a part of preventative care.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

Why Female Veterinarians Should Embrace The “B” Word

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I remember so clearly sitting across the table from the three faculty members who would determine if my life-long dream of becoming a veterinarian would come true.

You know, the scary interviewer drilling you with tough questions, the nice interviewer relating to you about your “outside” hobbies and the third interviewer acting sympathetic when you were asked a tough question.

The tough interviewer looked at me and repeated the question, “Do you understand what the expected hours and salary is for a recent graduate of veterinary school?”

I had done my research, I knew all the facts.  

I knew I would be taking out student loans to the tune of $57,000 every year for four years. I knew the average starting salary coming out of school was $60,000. I knew the average hours were never set in stone and veterinarians were expected to be on call… always.

I answered with the “correct” answer of a below average salary and above average hours with the expectation of staying late and always going above and beyond. The tough interviewer seemed pleased. He must have been thinking, “this kid knows the reality of the profession.”

What he didn’t know was I didn’t believe in my answer. I was thinking, “I’m not average. That won’t be my life, and I am going to make my life exactly what I want it to be.”

I was 24 years old, single, no children and I had nothing but big dreams. When I saw my future, all I saw was me, doing what I loved. I would pay off all that debt super easily within a few years of graduation. Easy peasy.

Flash-forward 8 years, I am 32 years old, a veterinarian, a wife, a mother to two children and am $270,000 in debt (purely vet school debt).

What I didn’t take into account when making my life plan was freaking life. You know all those expenses that come with having a life and a husband and children? Ya, all those little things.

True confessions of a working veterinarian mom in massive debt who never saw this coming:

  • I resent my profession for the amount of debt I’m in and some days, it makes me feel trapped and hate my job.
  • I regret that I never once thought about how long it would realistically take to pay back my debt load without owning a practice or specializing.
  • I feel stupid that I never once thought about the possibility of me wanting to stay home with my children. I took away that chance when I took on more than a quarter of a million dollars of debt. Talk about mom guilt on a whole other level!

This brings me to the “B” word. Budget.

If you are like I was and had put all of your focus on your career, you are probably lacking the life skill of knowing how to manage your money.

You may be thinking, “Rachel, I totally know how to manage my money. Next article!”

Truth time: If you have debt you can’t pay off, if you are coasting through life without knowing what your money is doing or if you find yourself living paycheck to paycheck… you don’t know how to manage your money!

I thought I knew how to manage my money and I managed myself into half a million dollars of debt when it was all said and done.

Budgeting is a basic skill that was somehow missed in my upbringing and education. Veterinarians are smart, but sometimes (myself is probably the best example) we are really stupid with money.

Being in debt is crippling and it is terrifying to face a future where you feel there is no hope and no way out.

My 24-year-old self was unable to recognize the disadvantage she was putting her future self at when she signed up for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that seemed like monopoly money at the time.

She didn’t realize future Rachel would have to drop her kids off at daycare every day with strangers. She didn’t realize she was taking away the choice for future Rachel to stay home with her kids if she wanted to.

Take the time to understand your money. Understand the position you will be putting yourself in when you take on debt. If you know you are going to have debt or if you are somewhere being crushed with a mountain of debt currently, there is a way out.

You need to budget. You need to live on a written plan. Once you understand how to do this, you can accomplish anything you put your mind to with your money. Are veterinarians in a crap ton of debt? Uh… most definitely.

Is there a way out? Absolutely! It’s that dreaded “B” word that everyone thinks will destroy their lives. A budget will actually give you freedom.

If you are a pre-vet student, a current vet student or a veterinarian with adorable babies, start living on a budget now. What you do today will impact your future in ways you can’t even imagine.

Embrace that “B” word and take back your life to live it the way you want to!

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hi, I’m Rachel. I’m a mom, wife, veterinarian, donut lover (preferably with sprinkles), and finance blogger.  I am a budgeting master on a mission to teach women the skills to become financially confident and live the life they want.  I blog about budget mastering, debt conquering and expense planning to end financial stress at www.BudgetwithRachel.com.


Breakup Letter to My Student Loan Debt

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Dear Debt,

It’s finally come to this. After years of struggling with you. Waiting for you to change. Feeling dragged down by you. Feeling ashamed of how big and scary you are. I just can’t do it anymore. I know now that I can’t keep hoping you will change. You will never change as long as I can’t even look at you.

And so, we need to breakup.

I’m tired of keeping you in the closet. Tired of pretending you don’t exist. I can’t keep ignoring you or giving you the silent treatment. Just the thought of you stresses me out and gives me stomach cramps. No more. No more.

I refuse to be your prisoner anymore. I refuse to feel ashamed of you any longer. I’m sure you could sense this breakup coming. After all, we go way back.  And rather than a breakup I’m going to reframe all this and call it, a breakthrough. Because in order for this breakup to be healthy I have to get to a different place with you. I need to leave this shame behind and embrace you for the value that you have given me.

So thank you.

Thank you for all that you have given me. With your help, I was able to become a skilled and capable veterinarian that saves lives. Because of you Maggie, Mako, Bentley, Abby, Bella, and Harley (to name a few) are all alive and happy and healthy. Because of you, there have been more kisses, more tummy rubs, more belly laughs, and more smiles in this world. Because of you, I have been able to do this. To save lives. To perpetuate the purest of unconditional love that is shared between human and animal. You helped me do that. And for that, I am so grateful.

And though you may be big, no longer will I let the tiny legs of shame creep into my chest when I think of you. I will face you with my head held high and plan for your demise.  And please, don’t feel like I never loved you. Because you are the purveyor of love. And that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Love,

The Purposeful Vet

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

It’s Just Business

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Vets are notorious under-chargers. According to one source, veterinarians give away the equivalent of $60,000 in services every year. EVERY. YEAR. Apparently, medical math and financial math are two very disparate mathematical species, and we are much better at calculating complicated CRIs than we are at adding up money dollars.

We often hear the call from financial gurus and veterinary experts to “charge appropriately” for our services. After all, how much we charge tells people what we think we are worth. If we routinely give away or undercharge for our time and skills, why should clients value our expertise?

This kind of thinking leads to statements that are variations on the following themes:

“I set my fees higher than my competition’s so clients know that I practice high-quality medicine.”

“The vet on the other side of town charges way less than I do, so I know she’s cutting corners.”

“That corporate chain is undercutting me on prices, and I can’t compete. They’re trying to run me out of business!”

But are these statements necessarily true? Or are they just describing different business models? If they are, then maybe, just maybe, there are lots of different, but equally valid, ways to run a vet practice.

For instance, maybe you are the vet who spends 30 minutes to an hour with every patient, loves talking to clients and answering every question in amazing detail, but routinely gets chewed out for running behind schedule. Why not open your own concierge-style practice where you charge a premium for your time? Plenty of clients would love to know they have your undivided attention for 60 minutes and would be happy to pay for that service. If you charge appropriately and keep your overhead reasonable, you could have a successful practice while only seeing 6 to 8 patients a day.

Or maybe you’re more suited to a fast-paced atmosphere where you are seeing 25 to 30 cases a day. You don’t really want to be tied to one exam room and one client for an entire hour when you could be working up cases, performing surgery, unblocking cats or meeting any other number of challenges instead. In that case, market yourself as an urgent-care type practice and get that fun, varied caseload that keeps you engaged and happy. Again, by charging appropriately and keeping costs in check, you could have a very healthy practice.

Another niche for vet practices is providing low-cost health care. This area of veterinary service seems to be the most controversial right now. These vets are often denigrated by their colleagues for “undercutting prices” and “devaluing all vets’ expertise.” They are seen as hurting the profession and treated as the enemy by other veterinarians.

But it’s really just another business model. There are many, many pet owners out there who love their pets and provide for them, but who find a $60 exam to be a financial burden. They may have a pet with an illness and only have $100 to spend total. If 60% of that goes away as soon as they walk in the door, that exam cost limits those owners’ options for treating the pet.

So some vets may make a choice to provide lower-cost exams and see more patients to make up for it, and they target that demographic.

And guess what? THAT’S OK. As with the other two examples, if the vets serving that niche can keep their costs down and provide good care to the patient and service to the client, it’s a perfectly valid business model. It is different from the low-volume, high-touch version of general practice.

Not better. Not worse. Just different.

One of the things that is so cool about this profession is that there are so many, many ways to be a veterinarian. Finding your way in this job and making it rewarding to you is what’s important.

If you want to charge $80, or hell, even $150 for an exam, because you believe in your skills and you want to see a limited number of patients every day – do it. If you like fast-paced medicine and seeing more patients, charge less and see more.

As long as you are satisfied with your work, you can take care of your staff, and keep the lights on, it’s your business.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Angela Hofmann is a practicing small animal veterinarian based in San Diego. She enjoys Basset Hounds and trying to suck a little bit less every day.

How This Tech Responds To “Vets are in it For the Money”

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Recently someone asked me what is the worst part about my job as an RVT. I’m sure they were expecting me to say something about euthanasias, but really, the worst part is having to listen to clients tell me that we are only in this for the money, that we don’t care enough about their pets because we charge for what we do. I’d like to set the record straight.

 

 

The average cost of veterinary school (I’m not including the undergraduate degree in this) is about $200,000. That’s for tuition and fees only, so let’s pretend these students are living at home with mom and dad, which most of them aren’t. The average starting salary for a veterinarian is $67,000 a year (before taxes). I got these numbers from Google, so you can double check me. Hopefully by this time they’re not living with mom and dad anymore, so they have to pay rent, food, utilities, health insurance, liability insurance, and oh yeah – they have to start repaying those student loans. Their take home pay is … well, dismal.

 

Also, many veterinarians are also small business owners. This means they have to pay for their building, their equipment, their supplies, their staff, their insurance, and more taxes. This is starting to sound like a pretty good case for let’s get all the money we can out of our clients. The reality is so very different.

 

When you go to the veterinarian, they recommend vaccinations for your pet. These vaccinations prevent communicable diseases which can be hard on the patients, but also very expensive to treat. They probably recommend spaying or neutering as well, which will prevent accidental pregnancies, dogs being hit by cars (dogs out “looking for love” are the biggest demographic for being hit by a car), life-threatening infections and cancer. Hopefully your vet spoke to you about heartworm prevention, and the importance of keeping your pet on a heartworm preventive year round. Your vet may also have recommended a specific diet for your pet to go home with. Wow, this visit is getting expensive.

 

Well, let’s look at the long term:

 

If your vet was only in this for the money, they wouldn’t recommend vaccines at all. They would make so much more money off treating these diseases than they do off the vaccines. Treating parvo can easily exceed $1000. A parvo vaccine: $30.

 

If your vet was only in this for the money, they wouldn’t recommend having your pet spayed or neutered. The cost of treating a pyometra (a uterine infection) or chemotherapy for testicular or mammary cancer is going to vastly exceed what they make on your pet’s spay or neuter surgery. Un-planned litters? Job security!

 

If your vet was only in it for the money, they wouldn’t tell you about heartworm prevention. You can buy more than eight years of heartworm prevention for the cost of treating heartworm disease once. Treating the disease would make them more money, easy.

 

If your vet was only in it for the money, they’d tell you to feed the cheapest food you could find. They’d encourage you to feed table scraps and bones. Why? Because nutrition is the key to so many other problems, and they’ll make so much more money off treating these problems, or doing the foreign body removal to retrieve the rib bones your dog swallowed.

 

Veterinarians choose this profession because they have a love for animals, and want to be a voice for those who can’t speak for themselves. They develop relationships and love watching the relationships these animals have with their families. They truly believe in the human-animal bond, and understand the importance these furry friends bring to our lives. They cry when it’s finally time to say good-bye, maybe not in front of you, but that’s because they’re trying to be strong for you.

 

So they make recommendations based on what is going to be the best thing for your pet, because their goal at the end of the day is to keep your pet with you for as long as possible. That means they recommend vaccines, heartworm prevention, spays and neuters, dental cleanings, and good quality nutrition. All of this adds up, but it costs less than not doing it.

 

I can’t say that there aren’t veterinarians who don’t get caught up in making a profit. Not everyone is perfect, but I can say that of the dozens of veterinarians I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with over the years, all of them have been concerned with the welfare of their patients first, and making their overhead second. I’ve also seen one go out of business because she gave too much away. Where does that leave her patients?

 

I’ve never seen a veterinarian not try to work with a client’s budget, but please remember that we have our limitations. If it’s two in the morning, and your dog is having convulsions, then I’m not telling you to go to the “expensive” emergency clinic because I don’t care. That is genuinely the only place on earth right then who can help your pet. And I’ll spend two hours after you hang up on me, losing sleep, because there isn’t more I can do.

So the next time you think, “my vet is only in this for the money,” please, take a moment to consider what you’re really saying.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

Riley NewsonAbout the Author

Kathryn Carman is an RVT at a 3 doctor small animal practice in Newnan, Georgia.