How much to charge for a Procedure

The costing module

Premvet 5 can help you to automatically estimate the price you should charge for each of your clinical procedures, taking into account staff salaries, time expended and practice overheads. Before you use this report for the first time, you will need to set up the variables which apply in your practice. These are as follows:

Salaries

You can have 5 categories of staff. The first one should be the veterinary surgeon. You enter the annual salary and the number of hours worked per year. If you are unsure of the actual number you can enter a zero. This will prompt you for weeks, days and hours worked - from this the system will calculate the total number of hours. Depending on the salary structure in the practice, users may want to differentiate between nurses that assist, nurses that develop x-rays etc.

Radiology

This screen deals with x-ray costs and depreciation of the x-ray equipment. You should enter - the cost of the x-ray machine & file processor, the number of years write off (usually 5). Then you will be asked the cost of processor chemicals PER MONTH along with miscellaneous bits & pieces (badges, name cards, gloves, aprons etc.). You will also be asked the cost of an x-ray plate, the number of x- rays done per day and the number of days a year x-rays are done.

Equipment

This section is only used to handle depreciation of the surgical equipment. You are asked the number of days a year operations take place, the number of hours a day the equipment is used and the write off period in years. Then you can enter up to 10 different pieces of equipment e.g. Table, lights, EKG, O2 alarm etc.

Miscellaneous

This section covers some miscellaneous costs:

• Price per night of hospitalisation - a rough guess would do.
• Follow up price - If you want the animal back for re-examination with the price included in the cost of the operation, work out the cost with this module and enter it here.

Fixed expenses

This is a percentage figure to cover gas, electricity, phone, etc.

Surgical fund

Use if required.

Mark-up

Enter the usual markup here.

When you have entered all the variables, you can use the costing module to price a procedure.You are taken through 5 steps:

1. Admitting
2. Pre-surgical
3. Surgery
4. Post surgical
5. Recovery & follow up

The screen will display the members of staff set-up and you are asked to enter the amount of time in minutes that each member of staff spends on that step. Remember little details - for example, it takes a nurse 2-3 minutes to come out front and collect a dog.

When entering steps c), d) and e) you will be asked if you want to enter any materials e.g. drugs, paper, stamps, catheter's etc. etc. You will be asked the name, number used and individual price.

Once these questions have been answered a costing breakdown will be printed.

Reference : Establishing Fees by C.L.Lippincott in Veterinary Clinics of North America Vol. 13 No 4 pp 723/735 November 1983, page 730.

Note: A more accurate method of costing staff time would be to assess the "actual" number of hours worked on clients' affairs in an average week rather than the number of hours "at work".