Dr Megan Kelly. Don t be afraid of the big investments

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Jeremy Potter
5 years ago
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2 It is a goal most of us share to have a vet rehab practice with all the bells and whistles; TENS, EMS, lasers, a digital thermal imaging machine, PEMF, a hydrotherapy pool and an underwater treadmill. With all the new and exciting equipment coming out every year, you might even have a hyperbaric oxygen chamber on your wish list. It all sounds really expensive, doesn t it? Many of us are still paying off student loans and cannot afford to pay cash. We d need to take out a loan to buy even one of these pieces of equipment. The thought of owing money and the burden of even more monthly payments can be a little scary. I think this is what holds most of us back. We are not sure that we will get enough clients and patients to pay those extra overheads, and so we hesitate. In the process, we may be holding our business back. A well-chosen piece of equipment can in fact boost business and pay for itself many times over. The key is to know what we re getting into. Let s look at the issue of buying big pieces of equipment a little more closely. Some simple calculations will help us make informed decisions when it comes to the big investments. Starting out When I think back to how I operated when I opened my practice, my approach was a little cowboy-like. I really took many leaps of faith, but they worked out well for me. I was practicing from a room in my home as well as renting consult space in three different vet practices. In this way I established great referral relationships, and the vets were happy to be able to offer rehabilitation services from their own premises. At the time, I referred my patients for hydrotherapy. There were only two hydrotherapy pools in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, so comprehensive treatment involved much travelling for my clients and a loss of potential income for my business. I was having great success with my cases, but felt that, especially for my hip dysplasia, cranial cruciate ruptures and neurological cases, I could be getting better outcomes with an underwater treadmill. Don t be afraid of the big investments Copyright. All rights reserved onlinepethealth.com 2

3 So my decision to move my practice from my house to new premises was based on the strong desire to improve patient care and outcomes. I needed to be in one place so I could treat my patients without travel time, and I needed extra room for the underwater treadmill. I already had a client base, so buying an underwater treadmill felt very simple and do-able to me. At that time an underwater treadmill cost R I calculated that if I got a loan, I would be able to pay it off over five years; together with the 11% interest, the cost would be R5 000 per month. I planned to charge R200 per treatment, so I would need to do 25 treatments a month, which is less than two a day. I thought this was a no-brainer; I can do that! I thought, and signed on the dotted line. But experience showed me there were a few things I had not considered. Firstly, there are some costs involved with treadmills, other than the price. These were: Insurance: R500 Water and electricity: R1 000 Chemicals: R300 Maintenance: R500 (averaged out over the five years) Extra rental space, per square meter: R2 000 And what about staff to run the treadmill? In the early days my assistant and I managed to run the underwater treadmill between us. I was lucky to have someone already working for me who learned quickly and was able to operate the treadmill efficiently. There were no canine hydrotherapists in those days. Not everyone has a reliable assistant. Had I been working alone, there are things I might have had to consider: Do I run the machine myself? use existing staff with a little extra training? employ someone especially trained for the job? The costs for these options vary considerably; from no cost if I do it myself, to a small increase if a current staff member is trained to do it, and a whole extra salary if I employ a qualified canine hydrotherapist to do it. Don t be afraid of the big investments Copyright. All rights reserved onlinepethealth.com 3

4 Do the math Whatever piece of equipment you re considering, and whichever option you choose in terms of operating it, you can work out the total monthly cost of running that equipment. Let s look at those hypothetical figures again: R5 000 per month loan repayments R500 insurance (includes equipment failure and lost income) R300 chemicals R500 maintenance R2 000 rental R8 000 staff Total cost: R per month. Now, many of us might not need to pay for extra rental space, as we already have a room we could use, and many of us already have the staff to run the treadmill. Assuming these, but looking at a worst-case scenario, let s consider how we might cover that total cost per month. R per month: If you work the odd Saturday and include time off for holidays, you can divide that by 22 working days a month. That comes to R740 per day that you will need to make, over and above your current earnings. That translates into four patients a day to break even on the cost of the underwater treadmill. Our break-even point is, of course, important when assessing risk, but it is not an indicator of success. As business owners, it can never be our goal to break even we re striving to make a profit. After about a year, I was seeing 15 patients a day on my underwater treadmill, with a waiting list. The underwater treadmill had paid for itself almost four times over in one year. Don t be afraid of the big investments Copyright. All rights reserved onlinepethealth.com 4

5 Value for money Depending on what you plan to buy and where in the world you are, your costs will vary but I am sure you get the idea of how one works out whether going ahead is feasible or not. Some pieces of equipment will have far fewer costs attached. Consider a therapeutic laser. Equipment like this has few extra costs, and you or a staff member will be able to use it, so that it quickly generates income for the practice. We want value for our money. Other factors to consider when purchasing equipment and choosing between brands are the following: Life span of the product: How long will you be able to use the product? Most loans will be paid off in five years. After five years you will be making an extra R5000 profit a month (or whatever the monthly loan repayments were). For how many years after loan repayments end will the equipment continue to generate an income? Warranty: How long is the warranty? The longer, the better. You will have peace of mind knowing that if it breaks down during the warranty period, all costs are covered. What are your insurance costs on the equipment? I used to have loss of income insurance on the underwater treadmill, and I claimed this a few times when we had to wait for parts for a motor problem. The cost was worth it. Check all the costs involved with the supplier: Tax, installation costs, training, transport, etc. Find out if these are included in the price. As professionals, the profit we can personally generate is governed by our time and our hands. So don t be scared of capital expenditure. Take the long-term view, and see the potential in that expensive piece of equipment. These purchases often create opportunities for our staff members to generate profits without us. As with all things, know what you re getting into; be bold and confident, but be so in an informed way. It is not too difficult to do the sums, to research a product and find out about the company and its after-sales service. It is this careful thinking beforehand that ensures we get value for our hard-earned money, and are able to take our business to the next level. Don t be afraid of the big investments Copyright. All rights reserved onlinepethealth.com 5

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