2 Dec 2019
With increased price pressure from the internet and growing competition from corporate practices, sometimes it can seem hard to see the wood for the trees. In this, a VBJ Buying Insight feature, help is at hand in the form of one of the largest, most trusted businesses in the sector.
VBJ
Job Title
Being independent has many advantages, but making the most of those advantages is not always easy.
With increased price pressure from the internet and growing competition from corporate practices, sometimes it can seem hard to see the wood for the trees.
Wouldn’t it be great to just be able to focus on client care and clinical outcomes without having to constantly worry about paying too much for your meds or how big the next wholesaler bill is likely to be?
Well help is at hand in the form of one of the largest, most trusted businesses in the sector – MWI Animal Health.
We know it’s not easy out there, but we firmly believe that, with our help and support, independent veterinary practice can continue to survive and thrive.
Alan White, MWI Animal Health group commercial director, said: “During the past few years, independent practice has had to become more business-like in its approach to thrive.
“There is much clearer visibility of pricing through the internet pharmacies, which means clients can now benchmark against their local independent practice.
“That’s put pressure on margins, so these practices have had to become more business-like in order to ensure that they are making the profit they need to keep opening the practice doors.”
For most practices, drug costs will probably be the biggest line in their accounts after staffing costs and while the buying group model is not new, the way MWI delivers its services certainly is.
By automatically calculating all rebates and discounts on stock, diets and meds on a monthly basis and offering a wealth of other support services through its online platform, member practices can get on with doing what they are best at.
Alan added: “What practices really need to thrive is to spend as much time as they can in front of the client and doing stuff that is adding value for the client.
“That means more time that we can free up for them where they are not sitting in the back office, either chasing rebates, chasing deals, doing the admin that is involved with that and trying to work out prices with all the complicated discount structures.
“If we can help them do that then they have more time to do what independent practices can do best and that is the face-to-face stuff with clients.”
He continued: “Through the MWI GPO – which is St Francis and Vetswest – we have the deals in place with the manufacturers and those deals are enhanced because they are done with a buying group and there is a certain weight of purchase there that enables us to secure better discounts for our members.
“Secondly, our members can go on to an online portal where they can look by product categories, by product, by brand and they can look across every product, which means they can very quickly see what their true net net cost is of that product. And that is after all wholesaler discount and all manufacturer rebates.
“This makes the whole buying process much easier and more transparent for practices to know exactly what they’re paying for products.”
Alan continued: “I would also add that if a practice was doing this for themselves, they might be getting deals from half a dozen different manufacturers and those manufacturers may pay in different ways and at different times, which means the practice has to reconcile that against the purchases themselves. They have to make sure that is being paid into their bank account when they are expecting it and they are having to do a lot of things to follow that up.
“We pay rebates monthly to every practice across the manufacturers we deal with. These rebates are displayed on their monthly statement and credited off their wholesaler bill, making the process much more streamlined and traceable.
“For example, if a practice’s monthly wholesaler bill is £30,000 and we collect rebates of £10,000, the amount payable by the practice is £20,000.”
Pharmaceuticals, consumables and diets may still be the key elements of the offering, but MWI also has deals with laboratories and crematoriums as well as providing bespoke CPD through its Business Academy
The company also provides services for practices looking to give their young vets and graduates the support they really need. “We also have a new vets and graduates CPD programme to help independent practices compete with some of the schemes operated by the corporate groups,” added Alan.
“The Creating Confidence and Competence programme is basically a series of CPD sessions that run through the year and supports young vets as they learn how to operate in a real-life practice. Things like, how you work within a team, how you deal with clients and the public… it is about making the vet team effective vets, rather than just trained vets, and setting the practice up for success.”
This kind of joined up service provision is the hallmark of the MWI offering, and that offering has just got even more tempting following the launch of the MWI Distinct Advantage programme.
Alan explained: “This is a membership programme that rewards practices with improved rebates for loyalty in their purchasing from a product formulary. The product formulary is overseen by a product governance board that is made up of independent vets from a range of species backgrounds and supported by a pharmacologist.
“The Product Governance Board will agree a formulary based on clinical need and, where possible, commercial benefit to practise.
“MWI Distinct Advantage membership also gives access to enhanced services like a marketing mentor, where practices can access online marketing training and tools to promote their practice.”
