Staff Discounts & Pet Insurance
Hi all,
I'm a veterinarian and the editor of the AVBA's quarterly magazine, In The Black. Each year in the Spring issue of In The Black we focus on the staff who work in veterinary businesses. This year we'll be looking into the provision of veterinary services to staff members.
I'm keen to learn the following:
1. What's your take on discounted veterinary services for staff i.e. are discounts given, rate of discount for professional fees / medications / food and pet supplies / laboratory tests, number of pets, waiting period, record keeping, payment terms etc.
2. Does your workplace provide pet insurance for staff pets and if so please supply all the details?
3. How does Open VPMS deal with staff discounts for differing levels for different services and products.
4. How does Open VPMS help facilitate pet insurance claims (be they for staff or other clients)?
5. Are there any other features of Open VPMS that I should know about that make this aspect of veterinary practice easier to manage.
I need input as soon as possible, preferably by 14th July, as I will be right off the beaten track for the month after that and would like to be able to work on the article whilst I'm travelling, even though I won't have email contact.
Please, either respond here or email me editor[at]avba.com[dot]au with your comments or if you'd prefer to have a chat about the issue then email me your phone number or Skype details and I'll call you.
Many thanks
Sue Halloran
Re: Staff Discounts & Pet Insurance
Hi Sue
I am an Implementor for OPEN VPMS and do not currently work in practice so am happy to respond regarding the set up for Discounts in OPEN.
We work closely with many different practices and find that each practice deals with staff discounts very differently. Some are set up to generate automatically others like to add the discount manually per invoice depending on the service. To set up OPEN to automatically generate a staff discount we;
Create a Discount Group called Staff Discount
Create as many Discount Types as required for this Group: Staff 10%, Staff 20% Staff 50%
Attach the relevant Discount Type to the relevant Product Types: For example;
you may wish to give staff 50% discount off all Vaccinations. So in the Product Type of Vaccination you include the Discount Type: Staff 50%.
you may wish to offer 20% of Pathology. So in the Product Type of Pathology you include the Discount Type: Staff 20%
On each Staff Customer File add the Discount Group called Staff Discount. This will now automatically generate the relevant discount depending on what Product is charged.
In OPEN individual products (not the whole Product Type) can also have a discount attached to them.
Hope this helps regarding set up and that you hear from other users on what they do in their practices regarding staff discounts.
Cath