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Starting your own veterinary practice can be both exciting and overwhelming. You’ve likely devoted your career to caring for animals, but running a business involves much more than just providing medical care to furry patients. If you're thinking about becoming a practice owner, understanding the steps involved can help you feel more confident and prepared. If you’re at a point in your career where you’re considering going out on your own, this article explores the paths to veterinary practice ownership and step-by-step instructions to help you start your own veterinary clinic.
There are two main paths for veterinarians who want to make the leap to become business owners.
Purchasing an established practice means you inherit an existing patient base, established systems, and possibly even a trusted team. This can be a smoother transition if you’re concerned about finding patients or the financial impacts of going for a period of time with no income.
While there are obvious hurdles with starting a practice from scratch, you’ll also have complete control over everything from the company name to the hours you’ll serve patients. While this path involves more challenges, like building a patient base and defining new processes, it allows you to create a practice that aligns perfectly with your goals and values.
Your professional goals will significantly impact how you approach starting your practice. If you’re in the early days of working as a veterinarian, you might decide it’s too soon to branch out into business ownership while you’re still honing your skills as a practitioner. On the other hand, if you’ve been working in someone else’s clinic for the last decade, you might feel well-prepared to handle the various aspects of practice ownership.
Creating a thorough business plan is crucial for laying out your vision and strategy. A well-crafted business plan gives you the opportunity to think end-to-end about your business goals, from the name of your business to your eventual exit strategy and everything in between. As you create your plan, consider these key sections:
The one great certainty of starting a business is that it’s going to cost money. Depending on where you live and whether you’re acquiring an existing business or starting a new one, how much money you need varies dramatically. Based on your business plan, you’ll want to step through key expenses and determine how much money you’ll need to borrow. From there, you can begin to look at financing options, which may include:
If you choose to acquire an existing veterinary practice, you may have a leg up on securing a space. Keep in mind that you may still need to negotiate the terms of a lease or purchase on an existing business.
If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll want to research optimal locations for your practice. Working alongside a qualified real estate agent may help you quickly find spaces that match your needs. As you search, consider:
Once your business is eligible for funding and have a physical space, you’ll need to get set up as a tax-paying legal entity. Consider working alongside a business attorney as you get set up—it may be the most effective way to ensure you check all the boxes.
In addition to doing paperwork like the above, it’s also important that you prioritize setting up your digital business channels. You may want to work with an experienced digital marketing agency to help you secure a domain name, set up your website, and ensure that people searching for your business online can find and interact with you easily.
If you’re fully outfitting an office from scratch, you’ll need to buy everything from chairs your patient’s humans can sit in while they wait to the scales you’ll use to measure vitals. While you may have outlined some expenses in your business plan, consider what you’ll need to buy in the categories of:
Even if you plan to maintain a small practice, it’s likely you’ll need to hire a few staff members. Consider finding an administrator who can field phone calls, schedule appointments, and manage billing. You may also want to have one or more assistants who can take the vitals of animals and understand owner concerns before you come into the room. If you plan to rapidly expand the practice, you may also consider bringing on additional veterinarians to maximize the number of patients you can serve.
With all of the preceding steps taken, it’s time to launch your practice, monitor results, and grow. Keep in mind that business may be slow during the early days. However, with persistence and effort, you can establish a name for your veterinary practice and create a thriving business.
Compared to other lenders that offer low amounts or short repayment periods, BHG Financial provides Veterinarian Practice Loans up to $500,0001,2 coupled with extended terms of up to 12 years1, making it more affordable than ever to achieve your goal of veterinary practice ownership. BHG Financial offers personalized concierge service, tailored to meet the unique funding needs of veterinarians. You can quickly view your personalized estimate without affecting your credit score by using our online Payment Estimator.
Not all solutions, loan amounts, rates or terms are available in all states.
1 Terms subject to credit approval upon completion of an application. Loan sizes, interest rates, and loan terms vary based on the applicant's credit profile.
2 BHG Financial business loans typically range from $20,000 to $250,000; however, well-qualified borrowers may be eligible for business loans up to $500,000.
Business Loan Repayment Example: A $94,695 commercial loan with a 9-year term and an APR of 14.8% would require monthly payments of $1,591.
No application fees, commitment, or impact on personal credit to estimate your payment.
For California Residents: BHG Financial loans made or arranged pursuant to a California Financing Law license - Number 603G493.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ESTABLISHING A NEW CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
To help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities, Federal law requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify and record information that identifies every customer. What this means for you: When you apply for a loan, we will ask for your name, address, date of birth, social security number and other information that will allow us to identify you. We may also ask to see your driver's license or other identifying documents. If all required documentation is not provided, we may be unable to establish a customer relationship with you.
* “7(a) loans.” U.S. Small Business Administration, https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/7a-loans Accessed August 22, 2024