Virtual Veterinary What🤔?

Virtual Veterinary Nurse👩‍💻...Yes you read that right. If Covid19 taught us anything, is that working virtually for our companies is a productive and doable thing. From answering phones, to scheduling technicians, to ordering inventory for the hospital, to triaging patients over the phone, veterinary technicians and staff all over the world had to put on their creative hats in order to follow pandemic protocols and help run veterinary hospitals and clinics right from home.

After 20 years in the veterinary field(me on the picture above☝️), I've learned that two things make you stand out in this field. One is patient care and two is customer service. Neither one can go without the other. I started as a receptionist/veterinary assistant in a small animal clinic and transitioned 2 years later to an emergency setting and found my passion. Working for an emergency veterinary hospital has its challenges, but the love of helping animals through their worst times kept me learning and growing as a professional in the veterinary field.

After years of working overnight as an ICU shift supervisor👩‍⚕️ and having the honor of leading an amazing group of technicians, I transitioned to the day shift as a Patient Care Coordinator and Vet Tech Schedule Coordinator. I now had the honor not only to work closely with the vet nurses, doctors, CSR's, and administration, but also the clients, in order to optimize patient care. I worked both on the floor and from home and found how important communication is in a hospital setting. The biggest complaint I received from clients was the lack of communication when their pet was under the care of the veterinary staff.

During the pandemic, the hospital I worked for placed additional CSR's to work from home to ease the stress of 'curb side assistance'. These virtual assistants👩‍💻 did an amazing job at reducing the stress of our in-house staff. A few of them being experienced veterinary technicians, were able to triage waiting patients over the phone in order to keep the veterinarian updated on their condition and calm stressed clients that had to wait in their car. During this difficult time, an experienced virtual veterinary assistant proved to be an asset to any veterinary practice.

How would you benefit from a virtual💻veterinary assistant?

Well, lets start by the fact that you don't have to worry about benefits, paid time off, taxes, or even placing more staff in an already crowded environment.

Do🤔you want to relieve some stress off of yourself and your employees while improving your customer service and patient care 🐶😺🐦 but you just don't have anymore room for additional staff❓

👉Supplement your current in-house staff with an experienced Virtual 👩‍💻Veterinary Nurse/Assistant.

A Virtual Veterinary Nurse/Assistant can👇:

👉Relieve stress from your front desk when they are handling client check-ins and outs.

💥Ever been at a Doctors appointment and you are standing at the front desk waiting for assistance but the receptionist is busy on the phone tending to another client? Not only are you waiting phone call after phone call, but the receptionist is stressed out trying to handle both situations. With a Virtual Vet Assistant, phone calls can be handled while the receptionist services your in-house clients.

👉Triage incoming emergencies via phone when the in-house triage nurse is handling current emergencies.

💥Give pet parents peace of mind by having a Virtual Vet Nurse handle their triage while your in-house triage nurse is dealing with the current emergencies/appointments. This not only can alert your in-house Nurse that this patient needs to be seen immediately (if it's a critical emergency), but it helps with collecting important information to start with a treatment.

👉Keep lines of communication open between your busy veterinarian and a pet parent.

💥The daily struggle of treating their pet patients and communicating with their owners is an incredible stressful one. A Virtual Vet Nurse can keep pet parents updated on the on-going treatment and condition of their pet, while giving doctors more time to focus on their patients recovery.

👉Update clients on their pet's treatment plan and charges.

💥Sometimes being focused on treating a pet patient tends to take so much of the staff's time that updating pet owners on their current financial standing slips through the cracks. This sometimes undoes all the good work your staff has put in when a client becomes upset that their bill has reach a point above their budget. A Virtual Vet Nurse can keep clients informed on a daily basis about their bill and pet's treatment plan and get approval from the pet parent.

👉Handle after hour calls and emails.

💥Your practice may close at 6pm, but many pet parents come home from work to discover "Fluffy" is just not acting right. With an experienced Virtual Vet Nurse answering after hour calls and emails you can help pet parents make a decision if this is an emergency situation or if they can schedule a next day appointment.

To summarize, an experienced virtual veterinary assistant is an amazing asset to any veterinary practice and will help you improve on customer service, patient care, decrease employee burn-out, and save you time and money in the long run.

Want to talk virtual? Schedule your consult today!