HILLSIDE VETERINARY CLINIC (HVC) JOB DESCRIPTION
PRACTICE MANAGER
The purpose of the Practice Manager is to serve the owner(s) of Hillside Veterinary Clinic (HVC) in establishing and reaching the goals and policies they desire. The Practice Manager combines the elements of business and veterinary medicine to succeed in maintaining excellence and quality of care to clients and their pets.
Under the direction and supervision of the practice owner(s), the practice manager will make many or most of the day-to-day veterinary-practice management decisions. These decisions include financial, budgeting, drug and supplies inventory, marketing, personnel, and facility-management decisions.
The practice manager must possess and exhibit maturity and a high level of integrity; have strong communication, organizational, and financial skills; and be eager and able to train and supervise the support staff. At the direction of the owner(s), the practice manager will be expected to perform the following duties and teach delegable duties to staff members.
General Description of Duties
Personnel
· The practice manager will use their skills and authority to accomplish optimal staffing to assure maximum productivity and service.
· Promote a positive attitude among staff, and motivate them to carry out the practice’s vision and mission.
Production
· The practice manager uses the tools of education, motivation, coordination, evaluation, and analysis to achieve optimal client satisfaction from veterinary services and staff.
Financial
· The practice manager directly or through supervision performs the financial functions of the business ranging from fee structuring and application to tax preparation and debt/asset management. The goal of the practice manager is a strong desire to achieve the best financial success possible for their business.
Administrative
· The practice manager may be charged with a range of administrative responsibilities from daily directing the business affairs of the practice to establishing the short and long term direction, goals, budgets, and protocols of the business and practice.
The following is a more detailed job description of the practice manager position.
General Knowledge and Tasks
General Knowledge
· Be reasonably familiar with breeds and coat colors.
· Follow OSHA standards. Be able to find Material Safety Data Sheets quickly.
· Competently speak and legibly write the English language.
General Tasks
· Develop and post a personal work schedule so that others will know when you are available. In addition to scheduled hours, provide home and mobile contact phone numbers, and be available as additional duties and emergency circumstances demand.
· Arrive for work punctually so as to set a good example for staff.
· Maintain a professional appearance while at work, including clean and pressed uniforms or clothes. Change clothes daily as necessary to look professional and avoid carrying odors.
· Smile and maintain an even, friendly demeanor while on the job. Perform job tasks efficiently without rushing.
· Handle stress and pressure with poise and tact.
· Show respect for clients, team members, and animals (alive or deceased) at all times.
· Have the physical strength and ability to lift pets and objects weighing up to 50 pounds without assistance. Assist in lifting patients weighing more than 50 pounds.
· Participate in your performance appraisal.
· Handle communications with staff, doctors, clients, other professionals (CPAs, lawyers), detail reps, and vendors with a professional demeanor.
· Conduct tours of the practice and/or kennel. Before each tour, ensure that the facility is orderly and that staff and patients are prepared for tours.
· Maintain constant vigilance regarding open doorways that could allow pets to escape from the facility.
· Maintain strict confidentiality regarding clients and patients for whom the practice provides veterinary services.
· Be prepared to handle any pet or facility emergency that may arise, including dog or cat fights, choking or strangulating animals, and facility fire or weather-related emergencies. Follow contingency plans.
· Follow established facility closing procedures to ensure the security of patients, staff, data, revenue, inventory, and the building.
Client-Interaction Tasks
· Develop friendly, professional relationships with clients.
· Use clients’ and patients’ names during conversations.
· Offer financial estimates to clients for services to be performed on patients as directed by doctors. Teach other support staff how to handle this task with confidence and tact.
· Counsel clients on payment options. Enlist doctors or veterinary technicians to answer medical questions or questions requiring medical judgment beyond your expertise.
· Discuss and enforce policies regarding payments, credit, finance fees, and pet health insurance. Review various legal-consent forms with clients, explain them, answer questions, and have clients sign the forms. Check that clients’ signatures match the signatures on the records.
· Advise clients of significant changes in policies or services since their last visit.
· Placate and/or compensate clients distressed by long waits, scheduling glitches, and other problems.
· Handle angry or grieving clients with a calm and reassuring manner. Be familiar with the grieving process. Always be sensitive to background chatter or conversations that could exacerbate the anxieties and grief clients experience during euthanasias or deaths of their pets.
Office-Management Tasks
General Office-Management Tasks
· Arrange for waiting-room amenities, such as current magazines, beverages, telephone, and/or television.
· Arrange for the production and distribution of business cards for veterinarians and staff members.
· Understand how to operate all office business machines, including fax machines, copiers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, and voice-mail or messaging systems.
· Ensure that service reminders and thank-you, welcome, condolence, and birthday cards are all sent in a timely manner.
· Investigate complaints. Resolve complaints in a manner that best supports the practice’s mission and philosophy. When appropriate, advise complainants of your findings and the resolutions that address their complaints.
· Evaluate general-business, health, professional-liability, worker’s compensation, and/or company-auto insurance policies yearly. Ensure that coverage is current and complete. Periodically seek quotes from alternate companies for comparison.
Phone Tasks
· Know phone functions, including the hold, intercom, transfer, forward, and three-way calling. Know who to call for repairs.
· Arrange for a reliable and cordial answering service, and provide its staff with specific, complete instructions for appropriate greetings, triage, and doctor-on-call contact.
· Establish an appropriate message on the answering machine.
Computer and Internet Tasks
· Program the practice-management software to maintain and search for, store, and print specialized lists from the database, such as:
1. Patients that are overdue for services and/or refills of pharmaceutical products
2. Clients with due or overdue balances on their accounts
3. New patient/client lists
4. Numbers of new clients per month
5. Average client transaction or invoice fees (ACTs)
6. Income production by doctor and groomer
7. Doctors’ average client-transaction or invoice fees (Dr. ACTs)
· Make bookkeeping entries, produce reports, and train others to read data and make entries.
· Draft letters and modify and print forms or letters.
· Assign computer passwords and identification codes to veterinarians and staff members. Ensure codes are properly used so that employees’ work can be audited and entries are properly attributed to veterinarians and staff members.
· Access and navigate the Internet to find veterinary websites, order supplies, and access information for clients.
· Design, or contract with a website designer to design, maintain, and/or make improvements to the website using client and staff input. Ensure that the website promotes the practice’s mission and goals.
· Assign and maintain email accounts. Check email regularly for clients’ and suppliers’ questions, requests, and information. Reply to emails or transfer them to appropriate employees.
· Back up computer files at the close of each business day, and ensure the backup is transported and secured at a location off the premises.
Procedure and Policy Tasks
· With the practice owner, veterinarians, and staff, develop core values as well as vision and mission statements for the practice.
· Plan, develop, and coordinate policies and procedures for:
1. Keeping medical records
2. Ordering, receiving, stocking, and inventorying drugs and supplies
3. Dispensing prescription products
4. Scheduling appointments, surgeries, drop-offs or outpatient procedures, grooming, and boarding
5. Handling emergency calls during regular business hours and after hours
6. Scheduling shifts for support and/or doctor staff members, including on-call or emergency schedules
7. Recording and storing employee time sheets
8. Creating and implementing effective client reminder systems
· Develop templates for descriptions of procedures and associated fees with the assistance of doctors and/or practice owner(s).
· Develop and use:
1. Admittance forms
2. Disclaimers and legal consent forms
3. New client and patient forms
4. Inventory control forms
5. Staff time records
· Develop and maintain an efficient medical record management system. Ensure that files are filed with accuracy and ease, and located quickly. Maintain specific locations or storage bins where active and inactive files are stored while in use.
· Develop, train others in, and follow protocols for handling:
1. Animal emergencies
2. Pets that have escaped from the facility
3. Employees who have been bitten or scratched
4. Natural disasters, including fires, flooding, hurricanes, and tornados
5. Internal emergencies, including power losses, fires, dangerous persons
6. Man-made disasters necessitating rapid exit from the property
Regulatory Tasks
· Be familiar with federal and state regulations regarding pharmacy, controlled-drug, and staffing issues.
· Maintain the physical plant and operations to meet the AAHA Standards of Accreditation or state board minimum standards of practice. Oversee the AAHA accreditation process and follow up on recommended improvements.
Human-Resource Management Tasks
General Human-Resource Tasks
· Promote a positive attitude among staff, and motivate them to carry out the practice’s vision and mission.
· Establish a chain of command so that staff members know to whom they should look for initial responses to ethical, medical, business, or personnel problems or concerns.
· Establish work priorities for staff members under your supervision. Maintain an efficient workflow.
· Prepare agendas for, schedule, and lead staff and staff training (including OSHA training) meetings. Ensure that training sessions are useful and productive. Encourage off-site continuing education. Teach other staff members bookkeeping, medical-record-keeping, equipment-maintenance, computer, inventory-management, client-relations, facility-maintenance, and cleaning skills, and about protection against physical and contagious hazards. Keep records of all training meetings.
· Schedule staff to ensure adequate coverage while minimizing downtime and overtime.
· Develop comprehensive personnel policies, development programs, and training programs that encourage applicants to accept job offers, protect and train current employees, and meet financial and quality-assurance goals.
· Develop personnel policies and a personnel policy manual that set standards for:
1. Hiring
2. Staff training
3. Appearance
4. Performance appraisals
5. Fringe benefits
6. Pay
7. Work schedules
8. Vacations
9. Jury duty
10. Maternity and other leaves of absence
11. Holiday schedules and pay
12. Overtime
13. Continuing education
14. Sick pay
15. Disabilities
16. Complaints regarding discrimination
17. Complaints regarding sexual harassment
18. Conflict resolution
19. Legal notifications
20. Tardiness
21. Personal time
22. Disciplinary action
23. Employment terminations
· Reevaluate and revise policies in the personnel policy manual as needed. (Note: AAHA offers the AAHA Guide to Creating an Employee Handbook, Second Edition to help you achieve this goal.)
· Establish and maintain accurate employee records files in a locked filing cabinet. Protect the confidentiality of such information.
Hiring Tasks
· Develop, use, and maintain job applications for various staff positions.
· Recruit new employees by posting notices, placing classified advertisements, and attending job fairs, and via direct solicitation. Create advertisements for staff positions and determine where to advertise to most effectively fill vacancies.
· Review job applications and resumes. Conduct phone and/or in-person interviews of potential employees. Assess their personalities, intelligence, potential for loyalty and care-giving, enthusiasm, stability, judgment, and technical skills. Check references and, if appropriate, run credit, drug, and background checks.
· When applicants will not be offered employment, inform them within a reasonable time period.
· Offer successful applicants employment and provide details of offers, including start date, initial salary, and benefits. Once the offer has been accepted, complete and submit the new hire paperwork, including:
1. Payroll information
2. I-9 verification of work eligibility
3. W-9 tax withholding
4. Health-coverage applications
5. Other fringe benefits forms
· Assign trainers and mentors to new employees. Provide new hires with job descriptions, individualized training schedules, and performance-appraisal forms. Clearly define expectations.
Performance-Appraisal and Termination Tasks
· Regularly evaluate the job performance of staff members. Develop and follow guidelines and appraisal forms to review and evaluate employees’ performances. Teach managers to contribute to and conduct evaluations for employees. Teach employees to productively and actively participate in their reviews.
· Participate in the reviews of associate veterinarians. Contribute to the discussion of their client skills, staff interactions, work ethic, and production levels. Ensure that the medical and surgical skills of associate veterinarians are adequate.
· Initiate disciplinary actions against employees. Provide verbal or written warnings for inappropriate work-related behaviors, and clearly state consequences for continued problems. Place employees on probation or suspension for serious or chronic work-related offenses. Document actions.
· Terminate the employment of employees when justified. Conduct exit interviews and, as much as possible, use the information to improve your performance and that of other personnel. Retrieve keys and all property that belongs to the practice. Advise employees of COBRA options, severance pay, and ongoing benefits as appropriate. Document the circumstances of terminations and exit conversations.
Pay and Benefits Tasks
· Set pay levels for each position. Establish clear differentiating skill sets for different pay levels.
· Develop, implement, and manage incentive programs that bond employees to the practice, encourage superior work performance, and keep costs within the budget allocated for staff expenses. Collect and evaluate data from various incentive bonus programs. Distribute bonuses in a timely fashion.
· Determine each doctor’s income production, calculate production-based pay, and ensure the distribution of reconciled compensation for doctors at the appropriate monthly or quarterly time intervals.
· Track each doctor’s emergency calls, calculate emergency pay, and distribute pay to doctors.
· Oversee payroll. Process time records. Adjust records and pay to account for time used for continuing education, vacation, illness, maternity/paternity leave, personal time, and/or disability. Ensure timely delivery, or automatic deposit, of employee paychecks.
· Evaluate potential fringe benefits programs, and, with the practice owner(s), determine which benefits to offer employees. Consider the benefits and costs of medical and dental health coverage, IRS-qualified profit-sharing and retirement programs, disability insurance, pet health insurance, and continuing education.
· Administer employee benefits. Ensure that employees are aware of the benefits available to them. Enroll new employees in the benefits programs. Complete and submit the required benefits paperwork. Serve as liaison between employees and benefits companies when the needs arise. Deduct established copayments from employees’ pay.
Facility and Equipment Tasks
· Ensure regulatory compliance with OSHA, DEA, the State Labor Code, and the state’s board of veterinary medicine. Post required agency forms, records, and reports. Administer an OSHA plan or assign and train an OSHA officer.
· Maintain a file of equipment, instruments, furnishings, and product purchase receipts; instruction booklets; and warranties to ensure easy access.
· Maintain a list of contractors, vendors, and service people for repairs, maintenance work, and emergencies.
· Price, evaluate, and purchase equipment service or maintenance agreements.
· Understand the practice-management software. Serve as a resource to staff for training and for resolving computer problems. Contact customer support if needed.
· Maintain and, with the approval of the practice owner(s), update computer hardware and software to maximize the efficiency of the business’ computer system. Train staff on upgrades, or arrange for training to ensure a smooth transition.
· Select and purchase office and medical equipment using input from veterinarians and staff.
· Select and purchase reference books for the library using input from veterinarians and owner(s).
· Select, arrange for installation of, and/or maintain the security system. Establish procedures for its use and train staff members accordingly.
· Routinely inspect the facility and ensure the continuous upkeep and maintenance of the buildings, furnishings, and grounds. Contract with landscaping and maintenance firms to provide repairs or maintenance as needed. Assign basic landscaping, mowing, and repair tasks to appropriate staff members or outside vendors.
Financial-Management Tasks
· Protect the business from economic losses due to theft, embezzlement, and negligence by developing internal controls to monitor client payments, bank deposits, and accounts receivable. Maintain tight inventory controls. Carry insurance to protect against theft and embezzlement.
· Prepare monthly and yearly financial and business reports: cash-flow analyses, income statements, balance sheets, and budgets.
· Establish policies regarding client credit, payment schedules, held checks, and the assessment of finance fees. Establish and/or maintain a credit application and management system for client accounts.
· With input from the practice’s owner(s), evaluate and adjust fees at no less than six-month intervals. Refer to AAHA’s The Veterinary Fee Reference for guidance. Determine a formula for pharmacy and drug markups. Ensure that fees reflect the owners’ goals, the practice’s mission, and the practice’s target market.
· Maintain accurate records of all revenues, expenses, disbursements, and loans.
· Develop spreadsheets for budgets, cash-flow analyses, schedules, and analyses of potential capital investments.
· Develop and manage a system to track and recover accounts receivable. While following appropriate fair-debt collection laws, complete timely written or oral communications with clients who have overdue accounts, or assign and train another staff person to do this.
· Track accounts payable or supervise the bookkeeper’s activities to pay bills in a timely fashion, take advantage of time-sensitive discounts, and avoid late fees, disruption in service, or deterioration of relationships with vendors. Handle reimbursements to staff for travel, continuing education, and other approved miscellaneous expenses.
· Maintain a preset amount of petty cash to use for minor daily cash needs. Track petty cash expenditures, and reconcile this account no less than once monthly.
· Ensure that credit card receipts match statements of credit card income and that credit card debits are only for legitimate client refunds. Confirm that cash and check totals match the receipts recorded as paid by cash and check, respectively. Investigate and resolve discrepancies. Inform owner(s) and CPAs of discrepancies immediately, and confer with them to solve discrepancies.
· Send monthly invoices containing accurately updated finance charges. Properly record payments received. Select a collection agency or attorney to handle accounts that are more than ninety days delinquent, and establish a system to transfer such accounts to these parties.
· Prepare checks for signatures by the owner(s).
· Review and reconcile financial reports, ledgers, and budgets. Reconcile day sheets and income reports daily.
· Develop and maintain an effective relationship with the practice’s banker.
· Correspond with and learn from the CPA. Provide the CPA with essential financial records. Respond to inquiries and provide additional information when requested.
· Develop and participate in programs that further the fiscal planning process, including its cash-flow needs, debt repayment, and choices or decisions relative to capital investments.
· Use historical information to forecast future revenues and expenses and develop the practice’s and the departmental budgets. Follow budgets when making purchasing and staffing decisions.
· Prepare and implement one-, five-, and ten-year business plans that develop the practice’s vision and mission through staff development, facility repairs or expansions, and capital investments.
· Oversee each day’s cash receipts and deposits. Establish policies that preclude the same staff member from filling out the deposit slips and making the bank deposits.
· Check credit card company statements to ensure that all credits and debits are accurately recorded in the practice’s account.
· Track payable taxes. With the assistance of the CPA, complete and file accurate monthly, quarterly, and annual tax reports.
· Audit employees’ work and the practice’s procedures. Ensure that procedures are properly followed and that they are effective.
Inventory-Management Tasks
· Oversee and maintain inventory.
· Develop and/or implement an inventory-control system that minimizes theft.
· Develop minimum drug and hospital supply values and reorder points. Train staff to properly use the inventory system, and monitor it for correct use.
· Establish and/or maintain a computerized tracking system for accurately inventorying products and supplies.
Marketing Tasks
· Build friendly, professional relationships with clients, colleagues, detail reps, vendors, and local resources such as animal shelters, city officials, and police.
· Analyze the demographics and psychographics of clientele and potential consumers to properly position the practice and develop marketing materials, including a logo, coordinated stationery, brochures, newsletters, and advertisements.
· Develop programs and marketing materials that enhance clients’ experiences, retain clients, and grow visibility within the community.
· Develop, plan, and implement special projects, including open houses, pet fairs, pet-week promotions, and school tours and
· visits.
· Establish and maintain signs that promote visibility, enhance the practice’s appearance, and notify clients of important policies.
· Develop, seek contributions to, produce, edit, and distribute email reminders, direct mail, and newsletters, brochures, and handouts. Periodically evaluate publications for accuracy and contemporary nature of the data; update them as necessary.
· Ensure the placement of new photographs, the development of new topics, and/or the presentation of new ideas on the bulletin boards.
· Develop and maintain a grief-support program to help clients adjust to the loss of their pets. Oversee the:
1. Mailing of condolence cards
2. Distribution of paw-print molds, locks of hair, or similar remembrances
3. Selection of donations to pet memorials
4. Selection of urns, crematory services, and pet cemeteries that are honest and reliable
5. Location of and arrangement for contact with grief counselors for anyone in need.
6. Immediate notification of clients when pets’ ashes are returned