Subscribe to a more efficient veterinary practice

In the current climate, we very much appreciate that veterinary practice owners and managers need to watch their budgets more closely. This can result in valuable time spent contacting manufacturers to negotiate commercial terms and assess the best deals, taking them away from what matters most — dealing with clients and their pets.  A monthly subscription service with robust technological support could help save time and money, putting independent practices in a position to compete against the buying power of the corporate practice model - therefore reducing time spent on cost analysis and administrative tasks.

Independent veterinary practices face tough challenges 

Running an independent practice amid the current recruitment issues, staff shortages, rising costs, and tight budgets is challenging. Veterinary practice owners and managers often feel the pressure to spend time searching for heavily discounted supplier deals so they can compete with corporate practices, resulting in valuable time lost seeing clients.

Three important decisions significantly affect how well practices handle the daily challenges they face.

• Selecting a wholesaler
• Choosing a practice management system
• Pharmaceutical choice — deciding what products to buy and from whom

MWI Animal Health have looked at the pressures independent practices face and created a solution in the form of a subscription model. Integrating these three key decisions into one subscription model could prove key to running an efficient independent practice. 

A subscription service to meet the needs of an independent practice

In everyday life, we are familiar with many forms of subscription. These include the delivery of fresh pre-prepared meals, written publications and television packages to name a few. In the veterinary world, we subscribe to congress memberships, printed journals, and CPD providers.

Integrating some of these intrinsic decisions into a veterinary subscription could become a key player in releasing time to the management of your practice.

Veterinary practices are familiar with the subscription model, with a large number running pet health plans. The customer-based bespoke preventative health plan delivers convenience and cost savings to clients, increasing preventive health compliance and therefore healthier pets while underpinning practices with regular cash flow.

MWI Connect offers the same convenience by delivering everything the practice needs under one brand. Its design is specific to ensuring the independent veterinary practice can deliver efficiency and reduce the administrative burden. At its root is a price-competitive formulary driven buying group, enabling you to purchase market-leading products at a competitive price through a wholesale provider that also offers a discount. It sits alongside a cloud-based practice management system encompassing a client engagement platform and a mobile extension to  support remote consults and payments. 

Integrating three verticals that veterinary surgeons use every day

1. A price-competitive pharmaceutical platform

   The MWI Buying Group offers independent practices a price-competitive marketplace. The Distinct Advantage purchasing platform is formulary based and delivers market-leading discounts, ensuring 100 percent of rebates go directly back to the practice. As pharmaceutical volumes grow alongside the buying group membership numbers, discount levels improve.
   
   The members dashboard, net-net pricing, and purchase analyses assist your practice management by integrating all of your costs into one consolidated monthly invoice.
   
   A group of independent vets (clinical board) have independently reviewed the products chosen for the Distinct Advantage formulary, ensuring excellent choice whilst maintaining control of costs and prescribing what is best for the patient. 

2. Wholesale discounts

   MWI Wholesale benefits from two fully stocked distribution centres across the United Kingdom.  Their portfolio includes a large, competitively priced consumables range and a partnership with Securos orthopaedic equipment and suture materials.  Because their systems are fully integrated, you can place an online order for consumables, equipment, and other supplies and have them packaged and shipped together — all fulfilled within hours of placing your order.  Members also receive a monthly discount that is applied directly to the invoice, effectively achieving a lower list price.

3. Enterprise technology benefitting clients and practices

   MWI Connect includes access to enterprise technology solutions that benefit both practice and clients. Included is MWI's cloud-based practice management system, Merlin, the client engagement platform, MWI Pet, and Swift, our mobile extension, which supports remote consults and payments.
   
   Merlin is a practice management system that allows you to custom-pick the tools you need. It streamlines repetitive tasks, tailors workflows, and offers real-time health record updates to the cloud for remote workers. The system tracks owner compliance and can enable prompts and reminders for repeat appointments.
   
   MWI Pet allows practices and pet owners to connect digitally. Clients can conveniently access the portal anywhere and at any time, registering themselves with your practice in just 30 seconds. Appointments can be booked online, reducing inbound practice calls with the service sending automatic confirmations and reminders.
   
   Swift fully integrates with Merlin, synchronising data and contacts. You can capture video, text, audio, and photos from remote consults, all of which can be saved to the patients' histories. Swift will in turn also support remote payment.

How the subscription service works

If you're already familiar with a pet health plan subscription model or utilise a subscription service personally at home, then you can directly apply this to the advantages of MWI Connect.

The MWI Connect subscription service delivers many practical benefits for your practice:

• One point of contact for all three verticals to make sure you get the most out of your subscription
• One monthly invoice collected by direct debit and accompanied by the appropriate breakdown reporting of costs for your management reports and monthly accounts, reducing in-house administration.
• Competitive pricing in all three verticals, including cost-price wholesale purchases, MWI products, and technology licenses to help you budget and save money
• 100 percent of manufacturer rebates paid to the practice in the same month as invoice, improving cash flow and delivering tight accounting, whilst supporting and growing your bottom line
• Full migration and installation of the Merlin practice management system, including cloud-based licenses, the MWI Pet client engagement platform, and Swift mobile support at no additional cost
• Full training packages for all systems and processes, including Merlin, the Buying Group portal, and bespoke reporting
• Discounts on Securos wet lab courses as an additional member benefit
• Free or discounted CPD training for your team members
• Priority calls as a subscription service customer to ensure support staff answer questions and queries efficiently 

The non-tangible benefit of all of this is the freedom to spend more time helping your clients with their pet’s needs.

Change can empower practices for the future

MWI Connect is a unique way to consolidate suppliers, group-based discounts, and enterprise software solutions under one umbrella. Its streamlined efficiency and cost savings enable practices to focus on what's really important: making sure clients are happy, patients are healthy, and business thrives.