Vet Burnout: How Tech Integration Can Help

Veterinary professionals are compassionate, hardworking individuals who make a difference in the lives of pets and their owners every day. Although a veterinary career is inherently rewarding, it comes with emotional ups and downs, long days and other factors that can lead to stress and burnout. A recent veterinary well-being study indicates that wellness in the veterinary profession has improved overall, but burnout remains a problem.¹

Burnout — and the closely related issue of compassion fatigue — can make affected team members more likely to experience serious mental health problems and negatively impact their job performance, which in turn impacts practice culture, productivity and profitability. The estimated cost of burnout in the veterinary industry is between $1 billion and $2 billion annually.²

One way to help alleviate vet burnout is to reduce workload and improve efficiency, allowing team members to go home on time and expend less mental energy at work. Technology that can be used for both clinical and administrative tasks may help veterinary practices achieve a more manageable work-life balance for their employees.

Modern financing technology also provides practices a way to offer their clients financing options, helping to improve care acceptance and minimize the stress team members may experience when they can't alleviate pet suffering due to client cost constraints.

What Is Veterinary Burnout and Why Does It Develop?

Burnout is a form of occupational stress characterized by emotional exhaustion and disconnection.³ It's a common problem in many industries, but caregiving professions like veterinary medicine are uniquely susceptible. Around 18% of veterinarians report high to very high levels of burnout.¹ At 31%, the number is even higher among veterinary technicians.⁴

Burned-out workers struggle with emotional and cognitive difficulties, which can cause poor performance and lower job satisfaction. People experiencing burnout may see the effects trickle down into their personal lives, and clinic culture may also suffer.

Consider some of the factors that contribute to burnout in veterinary practice:

• Student debt and financial stress. Veterinarians with higher student debt loans, especially new graduates and younger professionals, experience more burnout.¹ Among support staff, financial stress is a major contributor to burnout, with 88% of surveyed professionals indicating that compensation was a significant or moderate concern.⁴ To make ends meet, 1 in 4 veterinary support staff members work a second job, which likely results in fatigue and exhaustion.⁴
• Emotional stress. Veterinary team members often face emotional stress from tough cases and demanding clients, which can lead to a lack of empathy toward clients and pets, defined as compassion fatigue. Veterinarians and technicians are deeply invested in their patients’ well-being, and it can take an emotional toll when clients can’t afford treatment for sick pets. Repeated exposure to this type of moral distress can drain emotional resources and cause compassion fatigue and burnout.⁵
• Work-life balance. The COVID-19 pandemic placed unique stressors on the veterinary profession, including staff shortages and increased care demand, making for a poor work-life balance. Understaffing and inefficiency create unmanageable workloads for veterinary teams, contributing to long work hours and higher burnout. The most recent data shows improvements in veterinarians’ work hours and pay, with reduced burnout.¹ However, veterinary technicians continue to work longer hours, which correlates with higher burnout scores.⁴

How Technology Can Help Reduce Vet Burnout

Some helpful strategies for reducing burnout in veterinary professionals include providing adequate compensation, offering mental health resources and encouraging a positive clinic culture with open communication. However, studies have shown that the most significant contributors to burnout were work-life balance and work hours.⁴

The following technologies can help teams tackle heavy workloads:

• Artificial intelligence (AI). AI has many applications in veterinary medicine, including in-house and referral diagnostic tools that help provide reliable diagnoses. Dictation software with practice management system (PMS) integration, for example, can reduce the time veterinary teams spend on medical records by automatically completing subjective, objective assessment and plan (SOAP) templates and general communication logs.⁶
• Telehealth. Telehealth offers clients a convenient and affordable care option when a full exam isn’t required to treat a pet’s condition.⁷ It can also reduce clinic congestion and allow synchronous or asynchronous communication that can deepen veterinarian-client-patient relationships.⁷ Mitigating financial stress can reduce burnout in veterinary team members.²
• Modern practice management software. Advanced practice management systems are packed with helpful features. Automated reminders, two-way texting, online booking and third-party integrations may help ease administrative work and allow team members to focus on patients.
• Payment and financing technology. Digital payment systems and financing options that integrate with a veterinary clinic PMS can allow for faster transactions with fewer errors. They can also help practices offer financing solutions that can help their clients move forward with care recommendations.

Benefits of an Integrated Financing Solution

Financing providers like CareCredit offer built-in capabilities to augment modern PMS platforms. Integrated financing solutions like this can allow team members to manage payment types in one window without logging into a separate app or switching screens. In addition, integrated payments can help support workflows and increase efficiency.

The benefits of an integrated financing solution include:

• Improved client experience. Providing more payment options may help give clients peace of mind and convenience.
• Efficiency. Team members can look up accounts and process payments in minutes.
• Record-keeping. Transactions are automatically recorded in the practice's financial ledger.

CareCredit is a flexible veterinary financing option that offers clients a way to spread the cost of veterinary care over time. The platform includes seamless integration with many veterinary health software systems, saving teams time so they can focus on pet health. Users simply log into their usual practice management interface and can provide clients with quick service, even if they don’t have their cards.

Here’s a list of current CareCredit partners with available integrations:

• Avimark®
• Clover®
• Cornerstone®
• Covetrus Pulse®
• Digitail
• ezyVet
• Impromed®
• Intravet®
• NaVetor
• Neo
• PetDesk®

The CareCredit veterinary clinic experience

Miranda Duel, office manager at Homestead Animal Hospital, is happy with the changes integrated payments have made in her clinic. "Everyone comments on how easy it is to use and train on. Before, we had a credit card terminal on our desk and had to run patients through and then go back to record payment, which caused human error. Now it is all automatic through the integration,” said Duel.

Learn more.

Watch and see how CareCredit can be used with your practice management software:

Helping Veterinary Teams Thrive

Burnout is a serious problem among veterinary teams. To combat this issue, veterinary teams may wish to focus on the future of veterinary medicine, which includes technology. Advanced technologies can reduce workloads, improve work-life balance and help the industry thrive.

Digital financing solutions that integrate seamlessly with veterinary PMS platforms provide clients and team members with a fast, easy way to make or accept payments and help ease cost concerns and boost practice efficiency.

A Veterinary Financing Solution for Your Clinic

Looking for a way to help your clients manage the cost of care that is needed for their pets? Consider accepting the CareCredit health and pet care credit card. CareCredit is a flexible financing solution that allows cardholders to pay for veterinary services over time, while you get paid within two business days.

When you accept CareCredit, you will receive a custom link that allows clients to see if they prequalify with no impact to their credit score. Those who apply, if approved, can take advantage of special financing on qualifying purchases.* The entire process is mobile-friendly, leaving you free to focus on providing the care pets need.

Learn more about the CareCredit credit card as a veterinary financing solution or start the provider enrollment process by filling out this form.

Author Bio

Elizabeth Kowalski, C.V.T., has more than 10 years of experience as a certified veterinary technician. She combines years of practical knowledge with a talent and passion for writing, creating content for pet owners and veterinary professionals.

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